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To the Senate and House of Representatives : 

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and accom¬ 
panying papers. 

U. S. GRANT. 

Washington, February 13, 1873. 


Department of State, 

Washington , February 13,1873. 

Referring to the joint resolution of Congress, of the 20th March, 
1871, authorizing the appointment, by the President, of a commissioner 
to attend an International Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory 
Discipline, proposed to be held in Europe, I have the honor to transmit 
herewith the report of Mr. E. C. Wines, appointed under the said res¬ 
olution, of the congress which was held at London, together with an 
appendix containing a summary of the proceedings of the late National 
Prison Congress of Baltimore. 

Respectfully submitted. 

HAMILTON FISH. 

The President. 


Washington, February 12,1873. 

Sir : I have the honor to submit to you my report as Commissioner 
of the United States to the International Penitentiary Congress of Lon¬ 
don, together with an appendix, containing summary of proceedings of 
the late National Prison Congress of Baltimore. 

With great respect, I have the honor to be, your most obedient servant, 

E. C. WINES, 

Commissioner , &c. 

His Excellency U. S. Grant, 

President of the United States. 


H. Ex. 185- : 





By Transfer 

U. S. ' 


- 

* 

,-.vy- <*-vatory. 


AUG 1 4 WBy 



CONTENTS. 


Page. 

•General introduction. 1 

PART FIRST: STATE OF PRISONS. 

Chapter I: Prison systems. 7 

§ 1. Austria. 8 

2. Belgium. . 7 

3. Denmark. 10 

4. France. 11 

5. German Empire. 14 

(1.) Baden. 14 

(2.) Bavaria. 15 

(3.) Prussia. 15 

(4.) Saxony. 16 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 16 

6. Italy. 17 

7. Mexico. 18 

8. Netherlands. 19 

9. Norway. 19 

10. Russia. 20 

11. Switzerland. 21 

12. Sweden. 22 

13. United States. 23 

14. England. 25 

15. Ireland. 26 

Chapter II: Prison administration. 27 

§ 1. Austria. 27 

2. Belgium. 28 

3. Denmark. 28 

4. France. 28 

5. German Empire. 29 

(1.) Baden. 29 

(2.) Bavaria. 29 

(3.) Prussia. 30 

(4.) Saxony. 30 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 30 

6. Italy. 31 

7. Mexico. 31 

8. Netherlands. 31 

9. Norway.... 32 

10. Russia. 32 

11. Sweden. 33 

12. Switzerland. 33 

13. United States. 34 

14. England and Ireland. 34 

•Chapter III: Prison discipline. 35 

§ 1. Austria. 35 

2. Belgium. 36 

3. Denmark. 36 

4. France. 36 

5. German States. 37 

(1.) Baden.38 

(2.) Bavaria.-. 38 

(3.) Prussia. 38 

(4.) Saxony. 39 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 39 

6. Italy. 40 

7. Mexico. 41 

8. Netherlands. 42 

9. Norway. 42 

10. Russia. 43 

11. Sweden. 43 

12. Switzerland. 44 

13. United States. 45 

14. England. 46 

15. Ireland. 47 


































































IV 


CONTENTS. 


hapter IV: Moral and religious agencies .. 
§ 1. Austria. 

2. Belgium. 

3. Denmark. 

4. France. 

5. German States. 

(1.) Baden. 

(2.) Bavaria. 

(3.) Prussia. 

(4.) Saxony. 

(5.) Wiirtemberg.. 

6. Italy.. 

7. Mexico. 

8. Netherlands. 

9. Norway. 

10. Russia. 

11. Sweden.. 

12. Switzerland.. 

13. United States.... 

14. England. 

15. Ireland. 

Chapter V: Scholastic education. 

§ 1. Austria. 

2. Belgium. 

3. Denmark. 

4. France. 

5. German States. 

(1.) Baden. 

(2.) Bavaria. 

(3.) Prussia. 

(4.) Saxony. 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 

6. Italy. 

7. Mexico. 

8. Netherlands. 

9. Norway... 

10. Russia... 

11. Sweden. 

12. Switzerland.. 

13. United States. 

14. England. 

15. Ireland.. 

Ciiapter VI: Prison labor. 

$ 1. Austria. 

2. Denmark.. 

3. Belgium. 

4. France. 

5. German States. 

(1 ) Baden. 

(2.) Bavaria. 

(3.) Prussia. 

(4.) Saxony... 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 

6. Italy. 

7. Mexico. 

8. Netherlands. 

9. Norway. 

10. Russia. 

11. Sweden. 

12. Switzerland... 

13. United States. 

14. England. 

15. Ireland. 

Chapter VII: * Sanitary condition of prisons 

§ 1. Austria. 

2. Belgium.. 

3. Denmark. 

4. France.. 1. 


Page. 

48 

48 

48 

49 

49 

50 
50 

50 

51 

51 

52 
52 
52 

52 

53 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 
57 
57 

57 

58 
58 
58 
60 
60 
60 
60 
61 
61 
61 
62 
62 
62 
62 
62 

63 

64 
66 
67 
67 

67 

68 
68 
69 
69 

69 

70 
70 

70 

71 
71 
71 
71 

71 

72 

72 

73 

74 

75 

76 
76 
76 
76 
78 
78 






































































CONTENTS. 


y 


Chapter VII: Sanitary condition of prisons—C ontinued. 

5. German States. 79 

(1.) Baden. 79 

( 2 .) Bavaria. 80 

(3.) Prussia. 80 

(4.) Saxony. 81 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 81 

6 . Italy. 82 

7. Mexico. 82 

8 . Netherlands. 82 

9. Norway. 83 

10. Russia. 83 

11. Sweden. 84 

12. Switzerland. 84 

13. United States. 84 

14. England. 85 

15. Ireland. 85 

Chapter VIII: Reformatory results. 85 

§ 1. Austria. 85 

2. Belgium. 85 

3. Denmark. 8 G 

4. France. 86 

5. German States. 86 

(1.) Baden. 86 

(2.) Bavaria. 86 

(3.) Prussia. 86 

(4.) Saxony. 86 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 86 

6 . Italy. 87 

7. Mexico. 87 

8 . Netherlands. 87 

9. Norway. 87 

10. Russia. 87 

11 . Sweden. 87 

12 . Switzerland. 88 

13. United States. 88 

14. England and Ireland. 89 

Chapter IX: Prison officers, their qualifications and training. 89 

$ 1. Austria. 89 

2. Belgium. 89 

3. Denmark. 89 

4. France. 89 

5. German States. 90 

(1.) Baden. 90 

(2.) Bavaria. 90 

(3.) Prussia. 91 

(4.) Saxony. 91 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 91 

6 . Italy. 91 

7. Mexico. 91 

8 . Netherlands. 91 

9. Norway. 92 

10. Russia. 92 

11. Sweden. 92 

12. Switzerland. 93 

13. United States. 93 

14. England aud Ireland. 93 

Chapter X: Sentences. 94 

§ 1. Austria... 94 

2. Belgium. 94 

3. Denmark. 94 

4. France. 94 

5. German States. 94 

(1.) Baden. 94 

(2.) Bavaria. 94 

(3.) Prussia. 94 

(4.) Saxony. 95 

6 . Italy. 95 

7. Mexico. 95 

8 . Netherlands. 95 







































































VI 


CONTENTS. 


Page.. 

Chapter X: Sentences—C ontinued. 

9. Norway. 95 

10. Russia. 95 

11. Sweden. 95 

12. Switzerland. 95 

13. United States. 96 

14. England and Ireland. 96 

Chapter XI: Imprisonment for debt.. 96 

§ 1. Austria. 96 

2. Belgium. 96 

3. Denmark. 96 

4. France. 96 

5. German States. 

(1.) Baden .. 97 

(2.) Bavaria. 97 

(3.) Prussia. 97 

?4.) Saxony. 97 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 97 

6 . Italy. 97 

7. Mexico .. 97 

8 . Netherlands. 97 

9. Norway. 97 

10. Russia. 97 

11. Sweden. 98 

12. Switzerland. 98 

13. United States.-•. 98 

14. England and Ireland. 98 

Chapter XII: Causes of crime. 98 

§ 1. Austria. 98 

2. Belgium. 98 

3. Denmark. 98 

4. France. 98 

5. German States. 99 

(1.) Baden. 99 

(2.) Bavaria. 99 

6 . Italy. 99 

7. Mexico. 99 

8 . Netherlands. 100 

9. Norway. 100 

10. Russia. 100 

11. Sweden. 100 

12. Switzerland. 100 

13. United States. 100 

14. England and Ireland. 100 

Chapter XIII: Liberated prisoners. 101 

§ 1. Austria. 101 

2. Belgium. 101 

3. Denmark. 101 

4. France.. 102 

5. German States. 102 

(1.) Baden. 102 

(2.) Bavaria. 102 

(3.) Prussia. 103 

(4.) Saxony. 103 

(5.) Wiirtemberg. 103 

6 . Italy. 103 

7. Mexico. 103 

8 . Netherlands. 103 

9. Norway. 104 

10. Russia. 104 

11. Sweden. 104 

12. Switzerland. 104 

13. United States. 104 

14. England. 105 

15. Ireland. 105 

Chapter XIV: Suggestions relating to reforms.’* 105 

§ 1. Austria. 105 

2. Belgium. 105 

3. France. 106 






































































CONTENTS 


VII 


Chapter XIV : Suggestions relating to reforms—C ontinued. 

4. German States. 106 

(1.) Baden. 106 

(2.) Bavaria. 106 

(3.) Prussia. 106 

5. Norway. 106 

6 . Netherlands. 106 

7. Russia. 107 

8 . Switzerland. 113 

9. United States.. 113 

Chapter XV: Juvenile reformatories. . . 114 

§ 1. Denmark. 114 

2. Saxony. 114 

3. France. 114 

4. Italy. 115 

5. Switzerland. 115 

6 . United States. 115 

7. England.. 116 

Historical sketch of reformatory system. 116 

Results of the system..... 118 

Distinction between reformatory and industrial schools. 119 

Fundamental principles of reformatory system. 119 

1. The union of private agency with government support and 

supervision. 119 

2. The use of moral in preference to physical dicipline. 120 

3. Its thoroughly religious tone and character.. 121 

4. Careful industrial training. 121 

5. Supervision and occasional assistance after liberation. 121 

6 . The responsibility of parents to contribute toward the support 

of their children committed to reformatories. 121 

Chapter XVI: State of prisons in British possessions. 122 

§ 1, India. 122 

2. Ceylon. 124 

3. Jamiaca. 125 

4. Victoria. 126 


PART SECOND: WORK OF THE CONGRESS. 


Introductory. 128 

Chapter XVII: The prisoner after arrest and before conviction. 130 

What treatment should he receive ?... 130 

Remarks of Count de Foresta. 130 

Mr. Collins. 131 

Mr. Stevens. 131 

Mr. Powuell. 131 

Chapter XVIII: The prisoner during his incarceration. 131 

§ 1. Proper maximum of prisoners for any single prison. 131 

Remarks of Mr. Ekert. 131 

Sir John Bowring. 132 

Mr. Vaucher Cr6mieux. 132 

Mr. Stevens. 132 

Dr. Mowatt. 132 

Mr. Peterson, (Norway). 132 

Hon. H. H. Leavitt.’. 132 

Mrs. Janney. 133 

Colonel Colville. 133 

Dr. Frey. 133 

General Pilsbury. 133 

Professor Foynitsky. 133 

Mr. F. Hill. 133 

Baron von Holtzendorff. 133 

§ 2. Classification of prisoners. 133 

Remarks of M. d’Alinge. 133 

Mr. Stevens..*.. 134 

Dr. Mowatt. 134 

Mr. Tallack. 134 

Dr. Marquardsen.... 134 

Mr. Sargent Cox. 134 

Dr. Bittinger . 134 

Colonel Ratcliff. 135 

Baron von Holtzendorff. 135 



































































VIII 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter XVIII: The prisoner during his incarceration—C ontinued. 

$ 3. How far should prison management be regulated by legislation ?. 

Remarks of Mr. Stevens... 

Baron Macay. 

Mr. F. Hill. 

Dr. Mowatt. 

Baron von Holtzendorff. 

Mr. Beltrani Scalia. 

Mr. Hastings. 

Mr. Berden.:**.**:.*.. 

"Whether whipping should be used as a disciplinary punishment. 

Remarks of Mr. Stevens. 

Major DuCane.*. 

Dr. Mowatt. 

Mr. Shepherd. 

Dr. Marquardsen. 

Dr. Frey.- 

Dr. Guillaume. 

Major Fulford. 

Mr. Wills. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 

Mr. F. Hill.- 

Mr. Hastings. 

Sir Walter Crofton... 

General Pilsbury. 

Dr. Marquardsen. 

§ 5. Kinds and limits of instruction suited to the reformatory treatment of 

prisoners. 

Remarks of Mr. Stevens. 

Mr. Tallack. 

Mr. Merry. 

Mr. McFarlane. 

Dr. Varrentrapp... 

Miss Mary Carpenter. 

§ 6. Whether it is expedient in certain cases to employ an imprisonment 
consisting in mere privation of liberty without obligation to work... 

Remarks of Count de Foresta. 

Professor Wladrinoff. 

Mr. Chandler. 

Dr. Mowatt. 

Dr. Marquardsen.. 

$ 7. Whether sentences for life are expedient. 

Remarks of Baron von Holtzendorff. 

Dr. Wines... 

Dr. Mowatt. 

Hon. Daniel Haines. 

Mr. Stevens.. 

Mr. Vaucher Cremieux. 

Mr. Hastings. 

§ 8. Whether prisoners on reconviction should be subjected to a more severe 

disciplinary treatment. 

Remarks of Mr S. Petersen, (Bavaria). 

Mr. Ploos van Arnstel. 

Dr. Frey. 

M. Robin... 

Mr. Stevens.. 

Count Sollohub. 

Dr. Guillaume.. .. 

Count de Foresta.. 

Dr. Bittinger... 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 

§ k 9. What should be the maximum of imprisonment, cellulur or otherwise, 

for terms less than life?. 

Remarks of Dr. Marquardsen.. 

Dr. Frey. 

Mr. Stevens. 

Mr. Moncure. 

Baron Mackay. 

Sir Wal ter Crofton. 


Page. 


135 

135 

135 

135 

135 

135 

136 
136 
136 
136 
136 

136 

137 
137 
137 
137 
137 
137 
137 
137 
137 

137 

138 
138 
138 

138 

138 

139 
139 
139 
139 
139 

139 

139 

139 

140 
140 
140 
140 
140 
140 
140 
140 
140 
140 

140 

141 
141 
141 
141 
141 
141 
141 
141 

141 

142 
142 

142 

142 

142 

142 

142 

142 

142 


































































CONTENTS. 


IX 


Chapter XVIII: The prisoner during his incarceration—C ontinued. 

§ 10. Whether or not imprisonment should be uniform in nature, and differ 

only in length. 142 

Remarks of Count Sollohub. 142 

Dr. Mowatt. 148 

Count de Foresta. 143 

$ 11. Prison labor—penal and industrial. 143 

Remarks of Mr. F. Hill. 143 

Major Fulford. 144 

General Pilsbury. 145 

Dr. Wines. 145 

Mr. Hibbert, M. P. 145 

Sir John Bowring. 145 

Mr. Ploos von Amstel. 145 

Colonel Colville. 145 

Mr. Stevens. 145 

Dr. Mowatt. 145 

Dr. Frey. 146 

Chapter XIX: The prisoner after his liberation. 146 

$ 1. Best mode of aiding discharged prisoners. 146 

Remarks of Mr. Murray Browne. 146 

Mr. Powell. 147 

M. d’Alinge.„. 147 

Mr. Rankin. 147 

Baron Mackay... 148 

Mrs. Meredith. 148 

Rev. M. Robin. 148 

Mr. M. Browne. 148 

A member from France. 148 

Dr. Guillaume.. 148 

Mr. Bremner. 149 

$2. Best means of securing the rehabilitation of prisoners. 149 

Remarks of Mr. Stevens. 149 

Mr. Hastings. 149 

Sir Walter Crofton. 149 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 149 

Baron Mackay. 149 

Mr. Baker. 149 

Dr. Wines. 149 

Mr. Chandler. 150 

Sir John Packington. 150 

§ 3. Best mode of giving remission of sentences and regulating conditional 

discharges. 150 

Remarks of Sir W. Crofton. 150 

Mr. Tallack. 150 

Mr. Stevens. 150 

Mr. Chandler. 151 

Mr. F. Hill. 151 

Major Du Cane. 151 

Mr. Nevin. 151 

Dr. Frey. 151 

Mr. Hastings... 151 

§ 4. Supervision of discharged convicts. 152 

Remarks of Mr. Baker. 152 

Mr. F. Hill. 152 

Mr. Browne. 152 

M. Stevens. 152 

Chapter XX: Miscellaneous points. 152 

§ 1. Whether prison officers should have special training for their work_ 152 

Remarks of Dr. Guillaume. 152 

Major Du Cane. 153 

Baron Mackay. 153 

Sir Harry Vorney, M. P. 153 

Mr. Ratlibone. 153 

Major Fulford. 153 

Dr. Mouat. 153 

Dr. Wines.-. 154 

§ 2. Whether transportation is expedient in punishment of crime. 154 

Remarks of Count de Foresta.-. 154 



































































X 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter XX : Miscellaneous points—C ontinued. 

M. Pols.. 

Count Sollohub. 

Mr. Hastings... 

Count de Foresta. 

Baron Yon Holtzendorff. 

§ 3. Whether short imprisonment and the non-payment of lines may be 

replaced by compulsory labor without privation of liberty. 

Remarks of Count de Foresta.. 

Mr. Tallack. 

Rev. Mr. Collins. 

Mr. Stevens. 

Sir John Bowring. 

Baron Mackay... 

Mr. Bremner...,. 

Baron von Holtzendorff. 

§ 4. The proper limits of the power of boards of prison-managers, as regards 

the administration of prisons. 

Remarks of M. Loyson. 

M. Vaucher-Cr 6 mieux.. . 

Colonel Ratcliff. 

§ 5. Whether the government of prisons should be placed in the hands of 

a supreme central authority. 

Remarks of Mr. Hastings. 

M. Ploos van Amstel. 

M. Stevens.... 

Dr. Guillaume. 

Messrs. Carter and Baker. 

$ 6 . International prison statistics. 

Remarks of Mr. Beltrani-Scalia. 

Count Sollohub... 

Dr. Frey. 

Dr. Guillaume.,. 

Professor Lione Leir. 

§ 7. The best means of repressing crime-capitalists. 

Remarks of Mr. Edwin Hill. 

Mr. Serjeant Cox. 

Mr. Chandler. 

Colonel Ratcliff... 

Mr. Aspinall. 

$ 8 . Whether whipping is expedient in punishment of crime. 

Remarks of M. Pols. 

Mr. Aspinall. 

Colonel Ratcliff. 

Dr. Marquardsen. 

§ 9. Extradition treaties. 

Remarks of Dr. Frey. 

§ 10. Woman’s work in prisons. 

Remarks of Mrs. Chase.... 

Miss Mary Carpenter. 

Miss Emily Faithful.* 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. ’ 

Mrs. Lewis. 

Mr. Bremner. 

Rev. Mr. Crombleholme. 

Lady Bowring.... 

Chapter XXI: Preventive and reformatory work. 

Remarks of Mr. Brace.’ 

Miss Carpenter. 

Mr. Foote. 

M. Vaucher-Cr&nieux. 

Mr. Hendrickson. 

Mr. Howe.. 

M. Bourn at. 

Mr. Marshall. 

Sir T. Fowell Baxton.. ...! ” 

Mr. Baker. 

Baron von Holtzendorff... 

Dr. Guillaume. 

Mr. Wills. 


rage 


154 

154 

154 

154 

155 

155 

155 

155 

155 

155 

155 

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156 
156 


156 

156 

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155 




































































CONTENTS. 


XI 


Chapter XXI: Preventive and reformatory work—C ontinued. 

Rev. Mr. Crombleholme... 165 

Remarks of Mr. Aspinall. 165 

Sir W. Crofton. 165 

Dr. Marquardsen. 165 

Mr. Ford. 165 

Chapter XXII: Penitentiary systems.. 166 

§ 1. The Irisli convict system, as explained by Sir W. Crofton.-. 166 

2 . The Irish borough and county prison system, as explained by Mr. Bourke 

and others. 16? 

3. The English convict system, as explained by Major Du Cane. 167 

4. The English borough and county prison system, as explained by Cap¬ 

tain Armytage and others... 168 

5. The Scotch prison system, as explained by Mr. Monclare. 168 

6 . The Belgian prison system, as explained by Mr. Stevens. 169 

7. The Russian prison system, as explained by Count Sollohub. 169 

8 . The French prison system, as explained by M. B 6 renger. 169 

9. The Swiss prison system, as explained by Dr. Guillaume. 176 

10. The Italian prison system, as explained by Count de Foresta. 170 

11. The German prison system, as explained by Herr Ekert, Dr. Varrentrapp, 

and Baron von Hollzendorff. 170 

12. The Netherlands prison system, as explained by M. Ploos van Amstel.. 171 

13. The Swedish prison system, as explained by M. Almquist. 171 

14. The Austrian prison system, as explained by Dr. Frey. 171 

15. The prison system of India, as explained by Dr. Mouat. 171 

16. The prison system of the United States, as explained by Mr. Chandler 

and others. 171 

Chapter XXIII: Concluding session of Congress. 172 

§ 1. Presentation by Dr. Wines of the Works of Edward Livingston on 

Criminal Jurisprudence, in English and French. 172 

Letters from M. Verg 6 , member of the institute, and Archbishop Man¬ 
ning on the subject of Livingston’s Works. 172 

2. Presentation by Dr. Wines of M. Lucas’s observations. 173 

R 6 sum 6 of Mr. Lucas’s views. 173 

3. Propositions submitted by American delegation. 174 

4. Propositions embodied in hnal report of the executive committee, and 

adopted by the congress as expressing its conception of the funda¬ 
mental principles of prison discipline . 177 

Remarks of Mr. Hastings on moving the adoption of the report. 178 

Gov. Haines in seconding same. 179 

Miss Carpenter on report. 179 

Sir John Packington on putting motion to adopt report. 179 

5. Creation of permanent international prison commission. 179 

6 . Vote of thanks to Mrs. Hastings and Pears, with remarks by Dr. Wines, 

Archbishop Manning, and Sir John Packington. 180 

7. Vote of thanks to Dr. Mouat, with remarks by Mr. Aspinall and Baron 

Mackay.- 180 

. 8 . Vote of thanks to Dr. Wines, with remarks by Drs. Guillaume, Mar- 

quardsen, and Sir John Packington. 180 

Response by Dr. Wines .' 181 

9. Vote of thanks to Sir John Packington, with remarks by Messrs. Has¬ 
tings and Mouat . 181 

10. Response by Sir John Packington. 181 


PART THIRD : PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE CONGRESS. 


Introductory . 

Chapter XXIII : ^Prisoners and their reformation, by Z. R. Brockway.. 

Chapter XXIV : Cumulative sentences, by Liverpool magistrates. 

Chapter XXV : Treatment of prisoners, by Sir W. Crofton. 

Chapter XXVI : Preventive police organization, by Edwin Chadwick. .. 
Chapter XXVII : Crimes of passion and crimes of reflection, by Dr. 

Bittinger.:. 

Chapter XXVIII : Life and services of IIow t ard, by Dr. Bellows. 

Chapter XXIX: Historical sketch of the prison of Ghent, by M. Vis- 

schers.. 

Conception of this prison due to Viscount Vilain XIV.-. 

State of society in Belgium near the middle of eighteenth century. 


182 

182 

184 

185 
187 

189 

190 

194 

194 

195 


* Number of last chapter repeated inadvertently. 





















































XII 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter XXIX : Historical sketch, etc.— Continued. 


prison 



Mr. 


PART FOURTH 


PERSONAL INSPECTIONS OF EUROPEAN 
REFORMATORIES. 


Introductory..... 

Letter of instructions by Governor Seymour. 

Chapter XXX: Prisons and reformatories of Ireland. 

$ 1. Convict prisons of Ireland.. 

2. Juvenile reformatories of Ireland. 

Chapter XXXI: Prisons and reformatories of England. 

§ 1. English prisons. 

*2. Aid to discharged prisoners... 

3. Mrs. Meredith’s wash-house in aid of discharged female prisoners, 

4. Carlisle memorial refuge for women... 

5. English reformatories. 

Chapter XXXII: Prisons and reformatories of Switzerland. 

§ 1. The prisons of Switzerland. 

Penitentiaries at Geneva and Berne. 

Penitentiary at Zurich. 

Penitentiary at Lenzbourg... . 

Penitentiary at Neufchatel . 

2. Reformatories of Switzerland... 

Chapter XXXIII: Prisons of Germany. 

§ 1. German convict prisons. 

(a) Convict prison at Berlin. 

( b ) Convict prison at Bruchsal. 

(c) Convict prison at Munich. 

2. Detention prison at Munich. 

3. Patronage of discharged prisoners at Bavaria. 

System of patronage admirably organized; its organization^descril 

detail. 

Minutes of a meeting of the patronage society of Munich, Augi 

1873 . 

Chapter XXXIV: Prisons in Italy. 

$ 1. The prison delle Marate, at Florence. 

2. The prisons of Rome. 

(a) The prison delle Terme. 

( b) The prison of San Michele. 

This prison historic. 

Founded in 1704, by Pope Clement XI. 

San Michele the germ of the Auburn system. 

3. The future of penitentiary reform in Italy. 

Chapter XXXV: Prisons and reformatories of Belgium. 

§ 1. Belgian prisons... 

(a) Penitentiary of Louvain. 

(&) Convict prison of Ghent. 

(c) Detention prison and house of correction at Ghent. 

2. Juvenile reformatories of Belgium. 

Chapter XXXVI: Prisons and reformatories in Netherlands. 

§ 1. Military prison at Leyden. 

2. Cellular prison of Amsterdam. 

3. Detention prison at the Hague.. 

4. Aid to liberated prisoners.. 

5. Netherlands Mettray.. 

Chapter XXXVII: Prisons and reformatories in France. 

§ 1. Two distinct prison administrations. 

2. Explanation of the terms inculpe's, prevenus , accuses .. 

3. Grand depot of the prefecture of police. 



195 

the 


195 


196 


197 


199 


200 


200 


201 

nal 


201 

NS 

AND 


201 


201 


202 


202 


208 


209 


209 


213 


213 


214 


216 


216 


216 


216 


216 


217 


217 


228 


228 


228 


228 


229 


230 


231 


232 

in 


232 

12, 


234 


235 


235 


235 


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236 


236 


237 


237 


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238 


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240 


240 


241 


242 


242 


242 


245 


245 


246 


246 



































































CONTENTS. XIII 


Chapter XXXVII: Prisons and reefrmatories in France—C ontinued. 

4. Mazas. 247 

5. The Conciergerie. 249 

6 . The Grand Roquette. 249 

7. Sainte-Pelagie. 250 

8 . Saint-Lazare. 251 

9. La Sant6. 253 

10 . La Petite Roquette. 255 

11. The female central prison of Clermont... 255 

12. Male central prison of Melun. 257 

13. Departmental jmsons a t St. Omer... 25S 

14. A quasi prison. 259 

15. General remarks on French prisons.. 259 

(a) Material organization excellent—moral, lanquid. 259 

(b) Percentage of relapses increase rather than diminish. 259 

(c) Wards of preservation and amendment... 260 

( d ) Dietaries too low. 260 

16. Agricultural and penitentiary colony of Mettray. 260 

Founded by M. Demetz thirty-five years ago... 261 

General statistics. 261 

Conducted on the family system..... 261 

Advantages of this system. 262 

Agriculture the chief industry, but not to the exclusion of mechan¬ 
ical labor. 262 

System of training—the heart, the body, the intellect. 263 

Earnest care given to the wards of Mettray after their discharge... 264 

Mettray resembles a great and beautiful work of nature... 264 

Extraordinary results. 265 

The training school of Mettray, (6cole prdparatoire) . 265 

The maison paternelle , (house of paternal correction). 266 

Review of the colons . 268 

17. Patronage of discharged prisoners in France. 268 

Has not taken root widely. 268 

Well organized and successful as far as it goes. 269 

PART FIFTH: LESSONS, SUGGESTIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS. 

Chapter XXXVIII: Conclusion. 270 

§ 1. Principles above systems. 270 

2. Evil effects of repeated short sentences. 271 

3. The character of sentences needs modification. 272 

4. The prison system of a country should be a unit. 274 

5. Stability of administration an essential condition of a good prison 

system. 275 

6 . Series of institutions needed in a good system. 277 

(a) Preventive institutions. 277 

( b ) Juvenile reformatories. 278 

(c) The county jail. 279 

( d) The house of correction.* 280 

( e) The state-prison. 281 

Connected with these last two classes of prisons should be inter¬ 
mediate or testing establishments. 282 

Mr. Barwick Baker’s proposition on this subject. 283 

7. Crime-capitalists should be exterminated. 285 

8 . Society owes indemnity to persons wrongfully imprisoned and declared 

innocent by the courts. 286 

9. Effective means should be devised to identify prisoners previously con¬ 

victed . 288 

10. Greater attention should be given to penitentiary statistics. 289 

11. A reformatory prison discipline must work with nature, not against it.. 292 

12. A reformatory discipline must have a punishing stage and a training 

stage.296 

13. A reformatory discipline must impart the power and the will to live 

honestly.-.- - - - 296 

14. Religion and education are essential forces in the work of reforming 

criminals. 296 

15. To success in this work it is essential that those who engage in it 

should both desire and intend its accomplishment. 297 

16. A sincere belief that it can be done is equally necessary. 297 

17. Greater use must be made of moral forces, less of physical. 297 

























































XIV 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

Chapter XXXVIII: Conclusion—C ontinued. 

18. Individualization an essential principle in a reformatory discipline... 300 

19. Men trained to tbe work are needed.-.-.-. 301 

20. All possible encouragement and aid must be given to liberated prisoners 

wbo desire to live honestly.-. 302 

21. The National Government should have prisons and a prison system ot 

its own... 303 

TRANSACTIONS OF THE NATIONAL REFORM CONGRESS OF BALTIMORE. 

I. First session. 

Opening address of Governor Seymour.. 307 

Address of welcome, by Mr. Jones. 313 

Address of Mr. Kerr. 314 

Remarks of Mr. Hageman. 317 

Appointment of standing committees. 318 

Organization of the congress.-.318 

Roll of members.-.-.- - • - • - 318 

II. Annual reports of secretary and standing committees of the National Prison 

Association. 321 

1.. Report of the secretary.. 321 

2. Report of the executive committee. 321 

3. Report of the committee on prison discipline. 331 

4. Report of the committee on discharged convicts. 336 

III. Papers communicated. 338 

1. The criminal; by Dr. Despine, France. 338 

2. On the treatment of life-sentenced prisoners; by Miss Mary Carpenter, 

England. 348 

3. Remarks on sundry points considered in the Congress of London ; by 

the Rt. Hon. Sir W. Crofton, England. 354 

4. School for training officers at Mettray ; by M. Demetz, France. 358 

5. Susceptibility of criminals to reformatory agencies; by Henry James 

Anderson, New York. 359 

6. Duty of society to persons arrested; by William J. Mullen, Pennsyl¬ 

vania. 362 

7. Intemperance and crime ; by Aaron M. Powell, New York. 364 

8. Prison reform in Pennsylvania; by George L. Harrison, president of 

the board of public charities. 367 

9. Hope the great reform ; by Hon. B. F. Butler, M. C. 369 

10. The final cause of criminal legislation as effecting modes of punishment 370 

11. Thoughts on prison treatment; by A. H. Love, Philadelphia. 374 

12. A noble testimony; by Rev. C. C. Foote, ex-chaplain of the Detroit 

House of Correction. 374 

IY. Reports on the penal, reformatory, and preventive institutions of States and 

Territories. 375 

1. California—by Rev. James Woodworth. 375 

2. Connecticut—by Rev. J. K. Fessenden. 379 

3. Illinois—by Rev. Fred. H. Wines. 384 

4. Indiana—by C. F. Coffin. 388 

5. Iowa—by M. Heisey. 391 

6. Kansas—by H. Hopkins. 391 

7. Maine—by Rev. J. K. Mason. 393 

8. Maryland—by G. S. Griffith.. 396 

9. Massachusetts—by F. B. Sanborn. 400 

10. Michigan—by Hon. C. I. Walker. 411 

11. Minnesota—by Prof. W. T. Phelps. 417 

12. Mississippi—by General B. B. Eggleston. 422 

13. Missouri—by Mr. Miller and General Miner. 424 

14. Nebraska—by Rev. J. W. Snowden. 425 

15. New Hampshire—by Rev. Dr. Clark. 426 

16. New Jersey—by John F. Hageman, esq. 428 

17. New York—by E. Harris, M. D. 433 

18. North Carolina. 435 

19. Oregon—by Rev. G. William Walker. 439 

20. Rhode Island—by Rev. A. Woodbury. 440 

21. South Carolina—by General Stolbrand. 447 

22. Tennessee—by Dr. Wright. 449 

23. Texas—by Rev. Mr. Rogers. 449 

24. Vermont—by Rev. F. Butler. 451 

25. Wisconsin—by Hon. Samuel Hastings. 455 

26. Utah—by Mr. Rock wood. 458 
























































CONTENTS. XV 

Page. 

V. Proceedings and discussions.-. 460 

Discussion on annual reports of standing committees on prison discipline 

and discharged convicts. 460 

Discussion on indefinite sentences. 463 

Discussion on reports from Connecticut and California. 463 

Invitations from institutions in Maryland. 464 

Address by Miss Linda Gilbert. 465 

Discussion on reports from Michigan and New Jersey, and a paper by Dr. 

Despine on “The criminal”. 465 

Resolutions relating to the works of Edward Livingston, published in 

America and France. 466 

Discussion on annual report of executive committee, and a paper on “ Un¬ 
tried prisoners,” by Mr. Mullen. 467 

Sir Walter Crofton’s paper, with remarks on same. 469 

Discussion on Mr. Powell’s paper on intemperance and crime. 469 

Discussion on several papers relating to reformatory work. 470 

Invitation to hold next congress at Saint Louis—accepted with thanks_ 474 

Miss Carpenter’s paper on life-sentenced prisoners, with remarks on same.. 474 

Finance committee’s report. 474 

Discussion on memorial to congress. 475 

Discussion on system of leasing prisoners. 476 

Discussion on untried and discharged prisoners. 478 

Resolution and discussion on reformatories. 479 

Mr. Vaux’s remarks on the Pennsylvania system. 480 

Vote of thanks to Maryland Prisoners’ Aid Association and others. 481 

Valedictory addresses. 481 

Special thanks voted to Governor Seymour and Dr. Wines. 482 

Speech of Mr. Walker in moving this vote.. 482 

Responses from Messrs. Wines and Seymour.. 483 

VI. Resolutions adopted by the congress. 483 

VII. The National Prison Association of t\ie United States of America. 485 

1. Officers of the association for 1873. 485 

2. Board of directors. 485 

3. Standing committees.-. 486 

4. Corresponding members. 486 

5. Life-directors. 487 

6. Life-members. 487 

7. Treasurer’s report. 488 

8. Contributions from May, 1871, to May, 1873. 488 

9. Act of incorporation. 490 

10. Constitution. 491 

11. By-laws. 493 



















































REPORT. 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

The Congress of London lias passed into history. It is a fixed fact, 
irrevocable and unchangeable. It only remains to tell its story ami 
gather its fruits. The first is simple, and may be quickly done; the last 
will be manifold, and the harvest, it may be hoped, will be gathering for 
years, if not for generations, to come. 

In a paper read by M. Charles Lucas before the French Academy 
prior to the meeting of the congress, it was well remarked by that emi¬ 
nent and venerable man: 

International congresses have been too often repeated in our day to he looked upon 
as facts purely accidental. There is a reason for their existence. They are the neces¬ 
sary consequence of the two laws of the sociability and perfectibility of man, which, 
at the present advanced stage of our civilization, demand the international exchange 
of ideas to promote the moral progress of humanity, as they do that of material pro¬ 
ducts to advance the public wealth. Such congresses serve to show the condition of 
different nations as regards their intellectual development, in the same manner as 
industrial exhibitions show the comparative results of their economic development. 
Hitherto there have been convened congresses of governments and congresses of citi¬ 
zens. The first have already done good service, and it is desirable to increase their im¬ 
portance and their frequency in international aifd diplomatic relations. The second 
play the part of generous satellites of civilization, which, that they may give light and 
direction to its progress, rush to the front, sometimes rather precipitately and not in 
the most perfect order, but always affording a useful stimulus to human development. 
What stamps upon the Congress of London a character of complete originality is that 
it is entitled, and, in effect, is to be, a semi-official conference, combining the initiative 
of governments and of individuals. The circumstance most remarkable about it is 
that this semi-official character has been given to the congress by a government hereto¬ 
fore least disposed to interfere, in the slightest degree, with the free initiative of indi¬ 
viduals and associations, and by a people least inclined to tolerate such interference. 

This analysis of the elements composing the Congress of London is 
perfectly just. The congress was opened on the evening of the 3d-of 
Jilly, in tiie great hall of the Middle Temple, with an address by the 
right honorable the Earl of Carnarvon, a nobleman profoundly versed 
in penitentiary science and thoroughly active in the work of peniten¬ 
tiary reform. The address was able, terse, and practical—one of those 
model productions which give, with a Doric simplicity, “ the essences 
of things.” Every sentence went straight to the mark; every paragraph 
was marked by good sense; and the whole discourse, drawn from “the 
well of English undefiled,” held the vast assemblage spell bound to the 
end. 

At the conclusion of the address Lord Harrowby offered a resolution 
of welcome to the foreign delegates, which was seconded by Sir Charles 
Adderly; and both gentlemen gave expression, in well-conceived 
thoughts and happy phrase, to the sentiment of hospitality with which 
England received the members of the congress coming from other coun¬ 
tries. 

Baron Yon Holtzendorff, on behalf of the continental delegates, and 
the Hon. Joseph R. Chandler, on behalf of the delegates from Amer¬ 
ica, replied to the welcome in terms no less graceful and eloquent than 
those in which it had been conveyed. 

H. Ex. 185-1 




9 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


The undersigned would here respectfully submit to the President his 
appreciation of the character, work, and probable results of the Con¬ 
gress of London. 

1. Twenty distinct nationalities were represented in the congress by 
delegates bearing commissions from their respective governments: in 
some cases one representative only being so commissioned, in others 
several. In addition to the national representatives from the United 
States and the German Empire, fifteen States of the former and five of 
the latter were also officially represented ; some of them, as in the case 
of nationalities, by a single delegate, others by a plurality. The same 
was true of several of the larger of the colonial possessions of Eng¬ 
land; as, for example, India and Australia. So that altogether the 
number of official members with commissions from governments, could 
not have been less than sixty, and might have reached, and probably 
did, to seventy. This is a great fact, quite unprecedented in the annals 
of penitentiary reform. 

2. Besides official members, numerous delegates were present with 
commissions from national committees, prison societies, managing 
boards of penitentiary and reformatory establishments, societies of 
jurists, criminal-law departments of universities, and last, though not 
least, the Institute of France, the most illustrious body of savans in the 
world. Between official and non-official members, that is, delegates 
commissioned by governments and delegates commissioned by such or¬ 
ganizations as those named in the preceding sentence, the congress 
must have numbered not much, if any, less than four hundred mem¬ 
bers. 

3. If the congress was conspicuous by the number of its members and 
of the governments and organizations represented, it was no less con¬ 
spicuous by their ability and thorough mastery of the questions which 
engaged its study. It was a reunion of specialists—men and women 
largely devoted to prison-work, whether in the investigation of the 
principles of penitentiary science or in their practical application— 
and embodying, representatively, the knowledge, experience, and wis¬ 
dom of the world on the subjects to which its labors were dedicated. 

4. It is much that the thinkers and workers in this great cause have 
met in council; that they have looked into each other’s faces ; that they 
have grasped hands; and that they have felt their hearts beating, as it 
were, one against the other. Sympathies have thus been awakened 
and friendships formed, from which precious fruits will be gathered. 
All will go back to their respecive fields, to work with greater earnest¬ 
ness and higher hope from the strength and courage received from such 
communion. Valuable correspondence and the interchange of mutually 
instructive documents cannot fail to be among the useful results of the 
acquaintances formed at this great international gathering. Another 
benefit will be a far more extensive international visitation of prisons* 
and from this will come, on the one side, a large influx into the different 
countries of new and in many cases fruitful ideas, and, on the-other, a 
great diminution, if not a complete obliteration, of international preju¬ 
dices. 

5. An amount of information on the penitentiary and reformatory 
systems of different countries and their results, never, I think, hereto¬ 
fore collected, and certainly never before presented in one view, is 
among the most precious results of this congress. The greater part of 
the governments represented handed in carefully-prepared official re¬ 
ports in response to a series of questions submitted to them by the un¬ 
dersigned, and the information thus offered, wide and valuable as it is 


INTRODUCTORY-CHARACTER AND BENEFITS. 


3 


was most usefully supplemented by facts communicated and statements 
made by delegates on the floor of the congress. It would be difficult to 
exaggerate the value of such a mass of information, coming, as it does, 
from the most authentic sources, and, by consequence, clothed with an 
authority with which it could not have been otherwise invested. 

G. The vast fund of precious information thus accumulated will be 
diffused, through the agency of the congress, to the utmost limits of 
civilization. It is to be presumed that the official delegates will all 
make reports to the governments by which they were commissioned, 
all of which reports will, no doubt, be published among the archives 
of the governments to which they are made, and will thus not only 
be circulated among the people of all civilized countries, but will come 
under the special notice of the makers and executors of the laws of 
those countries. 

But this is not all. The numerous non-official delegates will, beyond 
a doubt, in a thousand different forms and through as many several 
channels, make report of the doings of the congress to their respective 
constituencies; and the press of all nations—so keen in its scent of news, 
so prompt to catch and crystallize all forms of thought, so potent for good 
as well as for evil, and, to its praise be it said, so ready, in the main, to 
lend its powerful aid to every worthy cause—will echo and re-echo these 
many voices to the very ends of the earth. What imagination can 
grasp the amount of good which will, in this infinite variety of ways, 
be accomplished through the congress, or forecast the progress thence 
likely to result in a department of social science second in importance 
to no other in the whole field of social investigation ? 

7. The congress has given, or is destined to give, an immense impulse 
to the cause of prison reform. On this point it is enough to refer to 
what has been written above, and to state that the evidences of a newly- 
awakened interest in penitentiary questions, and of a strengthened 
purpose to seek their just solution, are visible on every side. 

8. It is not to be disguised that the summoning of such an assemblage 
as that of the late Congress of London was a hazardous experiment. 
It was, from the start, encompassed with dangers as well as difficulties; 
and a peril far from inconsiderable, and awakening no little anxiety, 
and even some alarm in my mind, developed itself in the progress of its 
labors. Representatives from more than twenty different nationalities, 
coming together literally from the ends of the earth, for the study of 
problems at once so important and so perplexed as those comprehended 
in the field of penitentiary science, could not fail to develop a good 
deal of difference of opinion, which might become so sharp as to end in 
a violent disruption of the body. This is the peril referred to above as 
having actually presented itself—rather, however, to those who were 
more in the inner circle than to the ordinary observer. But by moder¬ 
ation and prudence the danger was averted, and the congress was, in 
the end, able to announce a series of propositions of the highest im¬ 
portance, embodying its conception of the cardinal principles of prison 
discipline. They are substantially those adopted by the Congress of 
Cincinnati, in 1870. This was a great result; and the whole world may, 
it seems to me, be congratulated on such a conclusion to the labors of 
the Congress of London. The propositions announced will enter as seed 
into the public opinion of the world, and can hardly fail, in due time, 
to make themselves felt in improved systems of criminal law and prison 
discipline. Indeed, Professor Marquardsen, of Bavaria, a distinguished 
member of the German Parliament, publicly declared his conviction 
that the new penal code for the German Empire, now under consideration 


4 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


by the Parliament, would be materially improved through the labors at 
the congress. 

9. The congress will have made a contribution of great value to the 
literature of penology. Its volume of transactions will embody: 1, the 
official reports of governments on the penitentiary systems and admin¬ 
istrations of their respective countries ; 2, the discussions had on the 
numerous and important questions which came before the body for its 
consideration, taken down at the time by competent reporters; 3, the 
papers submitted to the congress by distinguished specialists in differ¬ 
ent countries, most of them of remarkable ability, breadth, and power. 

10. Another admirable result of the congress is the creation of a per¬ 
manent international committee, charged with important functions in 
the interest of international prison reform, and more particularly with 
the duty of seeking to secure greater uniformity and trustworthiness 
in international prison statistics. The committee is constituted as fol¬ 
lows: Dr. Wines, United States, chairman; Signor BeltrauiScalia, 
Italy, secretary; Mr. G. W. Hastings, England; M. Loyson, France; 
Dr. Guillaume, Switzerland; Mr. Stevens, Belgium; Mr. M. S. Pols, 
Netherlands; Dr. Frey, Austria; Count Sollohub, Bussia; and Baron 
Yon Iloltzendorff, Germany. This committee will hold its first annual 
meeting in Brussels, Belgium, in the month of September, 1873. 
Doubtless one of the most important questions that will then come 
before the committee will be that of calling another international pen¬ 
itentiary congress, and if that question be decided affirmatively, the 
duty will arise of fixing the time anti place for holding it, and of deter¬ 
mining the bases on which it shall be organized and conducted. It may 
be hoped that this committee will form a kind of central bureau, to 
which intelligence relating to prison reform, and the progress made 
therein, will be communicated, year by year, from all parts of the world, 
and from which, in a condensed and digested form, it will be again dis¬ 
tributed to every region of the globe. Thus every part of the world 
will be kept informed of what is doing in every other part in reference 
to this vital interest of society. In this way a continual circulation of 
ideas on penitentiary questions will be maintained; the nature and re¬ 
sult of experiments undertaken in any given country will be speedily 
made known in every other: and an honorable rivalry will be kept up 
between nations, in which each, while rejoicing in every instance and 
at every proof of progress elsewhere, will yet strive to outstrip its fel¬ 
lows in the race of improvement. 

11. Three great national commissions have already grown, not, indeed, 
out of the congress, but out of the movement for the congress, having 
been created before the body itself assembled, but not before the propo¬ 
sition for it had been submitted to the governments by which the com¬ 
missions have been inaugurated. The first is a royal commission for 
Italy, named by the King last autumn, on a report submitted to him by 
the prime minister, Mr. Lanza, after an interview had with him by the 
undersigned, and expressly based on what passed at that interview. 
The second is a legislative commission for France, created by the National 
Assembly, in pursuance of a report submitted to that body by the Vis¬ 
count d’Haussonville and an act passed on his motion early last winter. 
The distinguished member avowed, in terms, that his report and motion 
grew out of the proposition for the Congress of London, and that the 
labors of the commission were, in part, intended as a preparation for 
that assemblage. The third is an imperial commission for Russia, 
named by decree of the Czar last spring. The first two of these com¬ 
missions, namely, for Italy and France, have, for object, penitentiary 


INTRODUCTORY-CHARACTER AND BENEFITS. 


reforms in those countries. The third has been created with a view, not 
ot improving an existing prison system, but of devising one entirely 
new, for a vast and powerful empire. They are all composed of eminent 
citizens, chosen on account of special fitness for the work to which they 
have been called. The French commission is formed, in one respect, 
on the model of the congress; that is to say, it combines the official 
and non-official elements, which, as M. Lucas has shown, gave a char¬ 
acter of special originality to that body. The act created a commission 
of fifteen members of the Assembly, with authority to associate in their 
labors such other persons, from outside the legislative body, as they 
might deem proper to invite. The commission is actually constituted of 
fifteen members of the Assembly and fifteen private citizens summoned 
to their aid. 

1-. The Congress of London has made easy the holding of future con¬ 
gresses of the same kind, since all agree that it lias been a success, and 
all unite in the desire that others, with similar aims and objects, should 
follow, and, indeed, that a character of periodicity should be given to 
them. But, more than this, it has taught us how to prepare for and conduct 
them in such a way as to derive the highest advantage from their labors. 

The appreciation of the congress and its labors, contained in the fore¬ 
going paragraphs, is shared by many eminent men in Europe, as corre¬ 
spondence, had with them by the undersigned since its sessions were 
closed, abundantly attests. I venture, in proof of this, to offer a single 
extract from one of the letters received within the period referred to. 
It is from Mr. M. S. Pols, one of the official delegates from Holland, who 
took rank, by common consent, among the most intelligent, industrious, 
and useful members of the congress. Mr. Pols says: 

I received a copy of the London Times containing your letter, and on nearly all 
points fully concur with you in opinion. I never expected any direct result from the 
congress, nor do I believe such to be the case with any congress not specially convoked 
for the solution of a distinctly stated question. The great aim of such congresses is 
to stir public opinion and to give it a mighty impulse in some direction. This aim, I 
believe, has been fully attained by the London congress, and as I believe that public 
opinion rules the world, not only in free countries, like yours and mine, but even in 
states seemingly directed by an uncontrolled executive power, the indirect results of 
the congress will soon appear, and our (or, as I do not hesitate to say, your) work will 
be proven not to have been fruitless. The thoroughly practical and scientific character 
of the proceedings, the earnest, and on many points exhaustive discussions, and the 
unanimous accord finally reached concerning so many great and important principles 
of penitentiary discipline, insure its. success, which will prove the greater, as it will 
be won by instillation and not by strong measures, too soon iu general counteracted by 
reaction. Nor do I think it one of the least remarkable results of the congress that 
men, so widely diverging as to the means of working out common principles, have met 
one another without any quarreling or personal strife, but, without an exception that 
I am aware of, have shown the greatest esteem for their strongest antagonists, the 
largest toleration for adverse opinions. The absence of petty jealousies and personal 
vanities insures, as I believe, an impartial and broad consideration of the rival sys¬ 
tems. 

The report which the undersigned lias the honor now to submit to 
the President will consist of five parts, as follows : 

Part First will present a complete resume, arranged in subjects, of the 
information furnished in the official reports submitted to the congress 
from the different countries, thus giving, at a glance, a comparative 
view of the present state of prison discipline and the progress of prison 
reform in the leading nations of the world. 

Part Second will review and condense the proceedings of the congress, 
giving the gist of the debates and the main currents of opinion and 
argument developed in them. 


6 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Part Third will contain some notice of the papers offered to the con¬ 
gress, with an analysis of a portion of them. 

Part Fourth will embody the results of the personal observations and 
inquiries of the undersigned in relation to the prisons and reformatories 
of Europe. 

Part Fifth will deduce, from all that has gone before, its appropriate 
lessons, and state them in the form of suggestions and recommendations. 




PART FIRST. 


STATE OF PRISONS. 


CHAPTER I. 

PRISON SYSTEMS. 

§ 1- Austria has three classes of prisons, those for male and female 
prisoners being- distinct establishments, viz : 1, prisons for persons sen¬ 
tenced to more than one year of imprisonment; 2, prisons for persons 
sentenced to less than one year; 3, prisons of the district-courts for 
minor offenses. Of the first class, there are eighteen, with a mean pop¬ 
ulation of 10,490; of the second class there are sixty-two, with an aver¬ 
age imputation of 7,103 ; of the third, neither the number of prisons nor 
the population is given. 

The proportion of male prisoners to female in prisons of the first class 
is as five to one, and in prisons of the second class as six to one. 

Until quite recently the associated system of imprisonment alone ex¬ 
isted in Austria. Since 1867 all new prison constructions have been 
arranged in such manner that associated imprisonment may be com¬ 
bined with cellular; so that, excepting short imprisonments, which, it is 
held in Austria, ought to be wholly cellular, every prisoner should, as a 
rule, spend at least the first eight months of his imprisonment in a cell, 
and the remainder in association, under conditions of proper classifica¬ 
tion, and a consequent gradually improved treatment and a gradual prep¬ 
aration for liberty. Several prisons of the first class have been built or 
are in process of construction upon this plan, in which, nevertheless, it 
isintended that one-third of theinmates shall undergo their entire punish¬ 
ment in cells, and that the other two-thirds, after eight months of cellu¬ 
lar confinement, shall pass into the state of association and enjoy th^ 
benefits of a progressive classification. One prison only of the second 
class has thus far been arranged on this plan. 

The considerations which have prompted this change are that collective 
imprisonment, carried through the whole sentence, has been found by 
experience incompatible with individual treatment, and consequently 
obstructive as regards the moral improvement of the prisoner, partic¬ 
ularly in the old and ill-constructed country prisons, so that many are 
made worse instead of better by their imprisonment. On the other 
hand, the system of absolute isolation has been attended with this 
disadvantage, that it makes the prisoner weak-willed, especially if the 
confinement is long continued. It incapacitates him to meet success¬ 
fully the temptations that beset him on his return to liberty. Difference 
of culture is also found to give a wide difference of result in the 
application of the cellular system, and many prove, on trial, wholly un¬ 
fitted for isolation. On these grounds it has been judged wisest to 
choose a middle course, and combine the two systems. 

In prisons where the associated system is followed there exists a 
classification of prisoners in the dormitories. Youthful criminals, espe¬ 
cially, are kept as much as possible from old and hardened offenders; 




8 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


and educated prisoners are not, if it can be avoided, placed with the 
ignorant, the rude, and the base. The opinion is expressed in the report 
that the same classification should be (whence the inference is plain that 
it is not) extended to the time and place when and where the prisoners 
take their exercise. It is further declared that the basis of classifica¬ 
tion should be age, education, state of mind, former life, degree of guilt, 
and the crime committed ; a principle which, in the opinion of the un¬ 
dersigned, cannot, in regard to most of the particulars named, be ap¬ 
plied with any great degree of certainty, and which, because of its arbi¬ 
trary character, would be of little value if it could. 

There are two kinds of sentence in Austria, viz: to simple or strict 
imprisonment for serious offenses, and to simple or strict detention tor 
those of a lighter character. The punishment of imprisonment draws 
after it the obligation to wear the prison garb, to submit to the prison 
fare, and to perform the allotted work. Political prisoners are absolved 
from compulsory labor and from the prison dress, which last exemption 
is also accorded to prisoners sentenced to simple imprisonment. 

The punishment of strict detention involves a treatment conformed, 
in respect of food and labor, to the prison regulations, but the prisoner 
is excused from wearing the prison dress and the work given him is of 
a lighter character. 

Simple detention is for i>ersons under arrest, and means merely the 
safe-keeping of the prisoner, who has the right to choose his own occu¬ 
pation and, if he be so disposed, to provide his own food. 

A singular adjustment of the relative duration of cellular and associ¬ 
ated imprisonments has place in Austria. A recent enactment provides 
that, after the lapse of three months passed consecutively in isola¬ 
tion, every period of two days so passed shall count as three in the 
term of his sentence. Another provision of the same act limits cellular 
imprisonment to three years and forbids the application of that system 
to prisoners sentenced for life. 

The funds for the support of the prisoners come from the state. Here 
and there, however, there exist small endowments in land or money, 
the revenues of which are applied to that purpose. In Vienna there is 
an old arrangement, by which all theaters and public exhibitions must 
contribute an annual fixed sum, of which half is paid for the relief of 
the poor and the other half to the prison-funds of the province of 
Lower Austria. The prisoners are by law obliged to pay the actual cost 
of their keep out of their own property. That part which goes to the 
state is set oft* against the amount received for prison labor. In the 
year 18G9, the sum paid to the state as the product of prison labor 
amounted to only the fifteenth part of the sum spent on prisons by the 
government. 

The directors and officers of the prisons of the state receive, when in¬ 
capacitated, the same pensions as its other servants. These pensions are: 
After more than ten years of service, one-third ; twenty years, one-half; 
thirty years, two-thirds; forty years, the whole of their last salary. 

If an officer before serving ten years becomes incapacitated he re¬ 
ceives, once for all, a sum of money equal to his last year’s salary. If he 
has become incapacitated by the service, as, for example, if he become 
insane or blind, he receives a pension of one-quarter or more, according 
to circumstances, of his last year’s salary. 

§ 2. The statement in the report submitted on the part of Belgium, 
in relation to the classification and number of prisons in that kingdom, 
is not perfectly clear. From its terms there would appear to be but two 
general classes of penal establishments, or three, including those for 


PRISON SYSTEMS-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM. 


9 


juveniles, viz : 1, central prisons, corresponding to what among us are 
known as state-prisons ; 2, houses of arrest (called provostal when de¬ 
signed for the safe-keeping of military prisoners), which are found near 
all tribunals of primary jurisdiction aud all courts of justice, for the 
custody of persons awaiting examination or trial, and also for the pun¬ 
ishment of prisoners convicted of minor offenses; 3, houses of refuge 
for juveniles, of both sexes, acquitted as having acted without knowl¬ 
edge, but placed under the care of the government for a certain period, 
to be educated and trained to industry and virtue. 

The cellular system carries by far the larger number of voices in Bel¬ 
gium, and has the high honor of counting, in that number, its ablest 
and most earnest living defender, M. Stevens, inspector-general of 
prisons for the kingdom. Of the twenty-six prisons in Belgium, 
eighteen are conducted on the cellular system, and of the six congregate- 
prisons four are undergoing alterations to adapt them to the system of 
separate imprisonment. The report submitted to the congress by the 
Belgian authorities states that the legislature has given its preference 
to the cellular system, because it renders repression more efficacious 
and because the reformation of the convict is thereby better insured. 
The results claimed for the system in that country will be more fully 
set forth in Part Second of this report. 

The number of prisoners confined in the Belgian prisons is not given; 
but the two sexes are stated to be represented in the proportion of 88 
per cent, of men and 12 per cent, of women. 

There are three kinds of sentence pronounced by the tribunals of 
Belgium, viz, to imprisonment, to reclusion, and to hard labor. Sen¬ 
tences to simple imprisonment are from eight days to five years; sen¬ 
tences to reclusion from five to ten years; to hard labor from ten to 
twenty years or for life. The report states that the difference in the 
treatment of prisoners sentenced to hard labor consists in this, that the 
first are confined in houses of correction, the second in houses of reclu¬ 
sion, and the third in convict-prisons. This statement is by no means 
clear, and the obscurity is increased by the fact that, in the enumera¬ 
tion of prisons, as given in a previous part of the report, no mention 
is made of either houses of correction or houses of reclusion. 

In the congregate penal prisons the prisoners are divided into three . ' 
classes. The lowest class comprises those whose antecedents are the 
most unfavorable and whose conduct is bad. This class bears the 
name of punishment-division. The middle class comprises prisoners 
whose antecedents, without being decidedly unfavorable and their con¬ 
duct absolutely bad, have, nevertheless, need to be subjected to a pro¬ 
bation, longer or shorter, before being definitively classed. This class 
has the name of probation-division. The third is composed of prisoners 
who, by their antecedents or their good conduct in the penitentiary, 
have claim to a special distinction. This class bears the name of recom¬ 
pense-division. 

These three classes, although subjected to the same regime and the 
same exercises, are nevertheless the objects of special distinctions. In 
order to be able to recognize the prisoners who belong to each, a dis¬ 
tinctive mark in the clothing is adopted for each division. The prison¬ 
ers of the punishment-division are subjected to the most painful labors, 
are deprived of the cantine , and suffer various privations, especially 
that of visits from and correspondence with the outside, except in 
urgent cases, which are left to the judgment of the director. The pas¬ 
sage from one division into another is determined by the administrative 
commission, on the proposal of the director. To this end the records of 


10 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


conduct and of punishment are consulted. The examination for classi¬ 
fication takes place during the first third of each year, unless oftener 
made necessary by exceptional circumstances resulting from overcrowd¬ 
ing in one or other of the sections. 

The numbers of the prisoners assigned to each division are inscribed 
on a roster suspended on the wall. 

The first classification is made by the director according fo the known 
antecedents of the convict on his entrance, the circumstances revealed 
on the occasion of his conviction, and the notes which are forwarded by 
the courts. The results of this system of classifying are not stated, but 
there is an implication that they are not particularly remarkable in an 
opinion expressed to the effect that, u to obtain solid results in a disci¬ 
plinary and moral point of view, it would be necessary to appropriate 
special wards to the different classes.” 

The funds needed for the support of the prisoners are derived from the 
same source as the funds required for the support of the other depart¬ 
ments of the public service. The cost of each day’s support is counted 
in gross, without takiug account of the product of the prison labor, 
wdiich is turned over to the treasury. The value of this labor is not 
stated. 

The pension granted to prison-officers who have become incapacitated, 
before the proper time for retirement, for a further discharge of their 
duties, is regulated on the footing of the average salary of their last 
five years of service. The pension allowed them on retiring is the same 
as that allowed to all the other functionaries of the government. 

§3. In Denmark there are two general classes of sentences, viz, to 
imprisonment and to hard labor. There are three kinds of imprison¬ 
ment: 1, imprisonment from two days to two years, during which the 
prisoner, though restrained of liberty, is permitted to procure whatever 
comforts he can by his own efforts; 2, imprisonment on common prison- 
fare from two days to six months, during which the prisoner is sub¬ 
jected to the discipline of the prison and restricted to the prescribed 
prison fare; 3, imprisonment on bread and water from two to thirty days. 
These punishments are undergone in the same buildings where persons 
not yet sentenced are detained. Every jurisdiction has its jail, the 
whole number in the kingdom being ninety-three. They vary greatly 
in size, that in Copenhagen having accommodations for more than two 
hundred inmates, while the smaller ones can receive only from four to 
six. The ordinary number of persons, in the whole country, who are 
either awaiting trial or sentenced to imprisonment in jail, is about five 
hundred. These jails are constructed and maintained at the expense of 
the jurisdiction in which they are situated. By far the greater part are 
of recent construction ; and as none can be built or materially altered 
without an approval of the plan by the ministry, the same principles of 
construction are realized with respect to all. The law requires that im¬ 
prisonment in the jails be cellular, unless positively forbidden by the 
medical officer. Consequently all the cells in the more recent construc¬ 
tions are for single persons, and contain about 800 cubic feet of space. 

Sentences to hard labor are of two kinds, viz, to u labor for ame¬ 
liorating” and “ labor for punishing.” Sentences of the first class, from 
eight months to six years, are undergone in houses of correction. The 
imprisonment is cellular, but, with deductions from the terms of sen¬ 
tence, expressly on the ground of the isolation of the prisoner increas¬ 
ing in proportion to the length of the sentence. Thus a nominal sen¬ 
tence of eight months is reduced to six, and oue of six years to three 
and a half, this latter being the longest period permitted by the laws of 


PRISON SYSTEMS-DENMARK-FRANCE. 


11 


Denmark for punishment in separate cells. The persons sentenced to 
this denomination of labor are either, first, those who have committed 
a slight offense or, at least, a crime not so great as to receive a sentence 
of more than six years; or, secondly, those who have not been pre¬ 
viously convicted; or, thirdly, young criminals, not exceeding twenty- 
five years. They are, consequently, without exception, persons whose 
moral regeneration may be hoped for. 

Sentences to hard labor of the second class, ranging from two years 
to life, are undergone in prisons on the Auburn plan, the prisoners be¬ 
ing together in the daytime, but separated at night. The prisoners so 
sentenced are divided into two classes. The first receive sentences of 
two to six years, being persons of a more advanced age, or who have 
been punished before. Their crimes are not great, but their moral vigor 
is broken. They form the fixed stock of the prisons, inveterate thieves, 
an assemblage of persons wretched and enervate, as well in a moral as 
in a bodily point of view ; ruined by idleness, drink, and debauchery. 
The second class receive sentences from six years to life. They have 
the name of u great criminals,” but, though the crime committed may 
be grave, it does not follow that it has necessarily sprung out of a 
thoroughly corrupted nature; on the contrary, it often stands solitary 
and has been committed in a momentary passion or under great mental 
depression. 

For criminals sentenced to u hard labor for ameliorating,” there is 
one prison (male) on the cellular system. For those sentenced to “ hard 
labor for punishing,” there are three, (two male and one female,) all on 
the associated plan. However, as there is but one prison for women, it 
contains prisoners sentenced to “ ameliorating ” as well as to “ punish¬ 
ing labor;” but the former are treated on the cellular, as the latter 
on the congregate, principle. The four prisons have accommodations 
for an aggregate of seventeen hundred inmates. The average number 
is about twelve hundred, and the proportion of women a fraction over 
12 per cent.* 

While I am writing this report, a letter reaches me from Mr. Bruiin, 
in which he says that his first work, after his return from London, was 
to draw up, on the request of the ministry, a proposal touching the 
manner of carrying into effect the punishment in the congregate prisons, <• 
based on the resolutions formed by the congress. 

§ 4. The prisons of France are comprehended in six classes, to wit: 

1, penal colonies; 2, central prisons; 3, departmental prisons; 4, es¬ 
tablishments for the correctional education of juvenile delinquents; 
5, chambers, or depots of safe-keeping; 0, prisons for the army and 
navy. 

Formerly, persons sentenced to hard labor received their punishment 
in galleys. There remains but one establishment of this kind at present, 
the bagnio at Toulon. The galley-prisons have, since 1854, been re¬ 
placed b 3 ^ transportation to penal colonies. Of these there are three, viz, 
in Algeria, in Guiana, and in New Caledonia—an island of Oceanica—the 
latter being the most important and the most hopeful. The colony of 
New Caledonia was created in 1864. This island offers, by the salubrity 
of its climate and the fertility of its soil, conditions propitious to trans¬ 
portation. The transportation of women is authorized by the law, in 
view of marriages to be contracted with the convicts after their provi- 

*The official report from Denmark being very brief, I have supplemented the infor¬ 
mation given in it by recourse to a paper on “ Prison-Discipline in Denmark,” pre¬ 
pared for the Cincinnati congress by Mr. Bruiin, supreme director of prisons in Den¬ 
mark.—E. C. W. 



12 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


sional or definitive liberation. The administration selected, from among' 
the female prisoners of every class, those who expressed a desire to 
profit by these arrangements. These women are placed, to undergo 
their punishment until their provisional or definitive liberation, in a 
special establishment at Maroni, under the supervision of the religious 
ladies of Cherry. The majority of females, however, sentenced to hard 
labor still undergo their punishment in the central prisons of the con¬ 
tinent. 

The central prisons of France correspond to the state prisons in the 
United States. Their legal designation is u prisons of hard labor and 
correction.” They receive three classes of prisoners, viz, women of all 
ages and men of the age of sixty and upward, persons sentenced to 
reclusion, and persons sentenced as correetionals to an imprisonment 
of more than a year. 

The departmental prisons are so called, not only because they are 
devoted to the exclusive service of the departments in which they are 
placed, but still more from considerations of property and maintenance; 
they have also the name of houses of arrest, of justice, and of correction. 
These prisons receive the arrested; the accused; the correetionals sen¬ 
tenced to one year and less; persons sentenced to severer punishments 
who are awaiting their transfer; police prisoners; persons imprisoned 
for debts in matters criminal, correctional, of simple police, and of fisc ; 
juvenile prisoners, whether arrested, accused, or committed in the way 
of paternal correction, and civil aud military prisoners en route. In 
general, the three houses are but three distinct wards in the same 
establishment, although, to answer the intention of the law, the house 
of correction, as being a place of punishment, should be distinct from 
the other two. 

. The establishments devoted to the correctional education of juvenile 
delinquents receive minors of both sexes of sixteen years and under. 
These will be considered more at length under another head. 

The name of chambers for safe-keeping is given to places in which 
are received prisoners who are being conveyed from point to point in 
localities where there is no house of arrest, of justice, or of correction. 
These chambers and depots have the same destination as such houses, 
and are but places for the temporary confinement of prisoners en route. 

The military prisons need not be described in this report. 

The cellular system is not applied in any central prison. The disci¬ 
pline of these prisons is that of detention in common with the obliga¬ 
tion of silence. Some of them, however, have cellular wards, in which 
may be confined certain classes of prisoners. 

Out of four hundred departmental prisons, fifty are constructed on the 
cellular system; but even in these, or at least a large proportion of them, 
it is the edifice only which is cellular, the system being in reality that 
of association by day, while separation is restricted to the night; so 
that no attempt is made in the report from France to establish a com¬ 
parison of the results yielded by the two systems. The report declares 
that the results obtained by the existing system are far from being satis¬ 
factory. More than 50 per cent, of the male prisoners and about one- 
third of the women discharged from the central prisons fall back into 
crime. The report strenuously advocates the abandonment of the 
regime in common, so far as the arrested, the accused, and persons 
sentenced to short imprisonments are concerned. 

The part contributed by the labor of the prisoners toward the cost of 
maintenance is placed at 50 per cent, in the central prisons and at 17 
per cent, in the departmental prisons, the deficiency being made up from 


PRISON SYSTEMS—FRANCE-BADEN. 


13 


the public exchequer. Some of the central prisons, however, do much 
better than this. In one of the female central prisons it has been possi¬ 
ble entirely to withdraw the subsidy granted by the state, the earnings 
of the prisoners being sufficient for the support of the establishment. In 
another central prison the earnings more than defray the cost, and in sev¬ 
eral that result is approached more or less nearly. It is hoped from 
these examples that the administration will at length attain the end 
which it has always sought in this regard—that of exempting the treas¬ 
ury from the personal expenses of the prisoners who are confined in 
its great prisons for punishment. 

The difference between sentences to simple imprisonment, to reclusion, 
and to hard labor, which are the three kinds of sentence known in 
France, is thus explained: Simple imprisonment is a correctional pun¬ 
ishment, its duration being for six days at least and five years at most. 
It is undergone in a departmental prison if its duration falls within a 
year 5 if beyond that, in a central prison. Feclusion is a punishment 
afflictive and infamous. The sentence to it, which is from five to ten 
years, is always served in a central prison. It implies the loss of civic 
rights. Hard labor is an afflictive and infamous punishment. A sen¬ 
tence to it for life involves civic degradation and civil death. The 
sentence which imposes the punishment of hard labor is printed and 
posted in the central city of the department, in the city where the 
sentence was pronounced, in the commune where the crime was com¬ 
mitted, and in that of the domicile of the convict. Criminals sentenced 
to hard labor for a limited term are, at the expiration of their sentence 
and during their whole life, legally under the supervision of the police. 

Classification of prisoners has been practised to some extent both in 
the departmental and central prisons; but, apparently, it has not been 
such as to lead to solid results. An experiment, however, of great 
interest, was inaugurated a few years ago in this direction. Wards, to 
-which has been given the name of wards of preservation and amend¬ 
ment, have been established in many central prisons, and appropriated 
to persons sentenced for a first offense, committed under the influence 
of a sudden impulse or of some violent momentary passion. This 
experiment promises the best results. The prisoners placed in these 
wards have shown themselves sensible to the distinction of which they 
have been made the object and have exerted themselves to justify it 
by their good conduct. The cases are extremely rare in which it has 
been found necessary to put them back into the common ward. 

The different agents of the penitentiary administration are subject, as 
regards their retirement and the pension that may be granted them, to the 
rules embodied in the law of the 9th of June, 1853, relating to civil pensions. 
The principle laid down by this law is that every public functionary, 
paid directly from the funds of the state, has a legal claim to a retiring 
pension, when he fulfills the required conditions of age and of continu¬ 
ance in the service, that is to say, when he has attained the age of sixty 
and has accomplished a service of t,wenty years. It is important to 
remark that account is made of military services when there are super- 
added to them twelve years, at least, of civil services. Moreover, a 
pension can be granted at fifty years of age, and after twenty years of 
service, to those who have become incapacitated from a longer discharge 
of official duty by grave infirmities resulting from the exercise of their 
functions. In short, this same law relieves from every condition of age 
and continued service, 1 , those who may have been disabled from 
continuing their service, whether as the result of an act ot devotion in 
some public interest, or in exposing their own life to save the life of one 


14 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


of their fellow-citizens, or as the result of a struggle or combat encoun¬ 
tered in the discharge of their duties; 2, those to whom a grave 
accident, resulting, notoriously, from the exercise of their functions, 
shall have made it impossible to continue them. 

§ 5. The German Empire was represented by a delegate named by the 
central government, but no report was submitted on behalf of the whole 
empire. Five states, however—Baden, Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, and 
Wiirtemberg—submitted reports each for itself. 

(1) There are four classes of prisons in Baden: Houses of correc¬ 
tion ; central prisons, of which, however, there is but one ; district- 
prisons; and fortresses. 

Prisoners sentenced to hard labor are placed in houses of correction ; 
prisoners sentenced to more than six weeks of imprisonment are placed 
in the central prison, and those sentenced to less than six weeks in dis¬ 
trict-prisons. The district-prisons are also used for the safe keeping of 
persons awaiting trial. There is one prison of this kind for each of the 
fifty-three district-courts of the grand duchy. The report does not state 
what class of criminals are sentenced to fortresses, but simply that the 
number of such is small. It further states that the punishment of those 
thus confined, as well as of the inmates of district prisons, is simply 
privation of liberty, the prisoners being free as to the choice of food 
and occupation. 

The punishment of prisoners confined in houses of correction and in 
the central prison is undergone in cells, as is also the imprisonment of 
persons under arrest. Certain restrictions, however, have place as 
regards the infliction of imprisonment on the cellular plan. It cannot 
be extended, contrary to the prisoner’s wish, beyond three years; nor 
can it, if he be between the ages of twelve and eighteen years and if 
he object, be applied beyond a maximum of six months. Those who 
object to this kind of imprisonment beyond the terms named above, 
and those who are pronounced by the medical officers unfit for it, are 
treated on the plan of association; nevertheless, they are associated 
only during the hours of labor; and they are, as far as possible, classi¬ 
fied for distribution in the work shops according to their personal quali¬ 
ties, and in a manner best suited to promote their moral amendment. 

The results of the cellular system have been favorable, and so have 
those of the congregate system when it has been organized and carried 
out on right principles. 

The number of prisoners confined, January 1, 1871, and which prob¬ 
ably represents about the average, was: Houses of correction, 303 ; 
central prison of Bruchsal, 441; district-prisons, under sentence, 198— 
awaiting trial, 227 ; total, 1,169. Of these, 85 per cent, were men and 
15 per cent, women. 

The support of the prisons is derived from three sources, viz : 1, pay¬ 
ments by prisoners who have property; these amount to very little; 
2, the labor of the prisoners; 3, subsidies b} 7 the state. 

The gains from prison-labor differ materially, according to the dura¬ 
tion of the punishment, the kind of prison, and the number in each. The 
product of the trades carried on in the cellular prison of Bruchsal lias 
sometimes sufficed to pay the whole expense of the establishment, with 
the exception of the salaries of officers; and for twenty years it has, on 
the average, paid considerably more than two-thirds of the current ex¬ 
penses of the prison. 

To superior officers, on retirement from service, there is granted 
an annual pension equal to four-fifths of their salary; to the inferior, 
equal to one-half- 


PRISON SYSTEMS-BAVARIA-PRUSSIA. 


15 


(2) The classification of the prisons of Bavaria is as follows: 1, 
houses of correction; 2, prisons for adult criminals sentenced for a 
term exceeding three months and for juvenile delinquents for a term 
exceeding one month ; 3, district-prisons of courts of justice for adult 
criminals sentenced for less than three monthsaud forjuveniles sentenced 
for less than one month.; 4, police prisons for persons arrested and held 
for trial. 

There are distinct prisons for men and women of the class called 
houses of correction ; in other prisons the two sexes are placed in differ¬ 
ent parts of the establishment. 

For persons convicted of crimes against property—theft, fraud, rob¬ 
bery, obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, extortion, receiv¬ 
ing stolen property, &c., and sentenced to a term exceeding three 
months—special prisons are provided, to which no other prisoners are 
sent. 

Bavaria has four cellular prisons. One of these only is for sentenced 
prisoners; the other three for persons awaiting trial. All the other 
prisons of the kingdom are on the congregate plan. 

Cellular imprisonment has existed for only a few years in Bavaria, 
and consequently (the report states) accurate data touching its effect 
cannot be given. But the system of isolation, it is added, gains ad¬ 
herents daily, because of the evil effects of the collective system as 
there practised. 

The classification of prisoners is not carried to any great extent; yet 
the governors must keep prisoners of average good conduct apart from 
those who give little hope of improvement and whose example would 
exert a hurtful influence on others. 

The funds Tor the support of the prisons are derived from the products 
of prison-labor, from fines, and from the public chest. The first of these 
sources yields 16 to 18 per cent, of the cost ; the second, 28 to 32 per 
cent.; and the state pays the balance. 

The pension, on retirement, is regulated by the length of service. If 
retirement becomes necessar 3 T within the first ten years, it is seven-tenths 
of the salary; if within the second ten, eight-tenths; if within the third 
ten, nine-tenths; and after forty years of service, or after the officer 
has reached the age of seventy, the pension is the entire salary. 

(3) The prisons of Prussia are: 1, prisons exclusively for hard labor, 
29; 2, prisons for imprisonment and simple detention, 15; 3, prisons 
of a mixed character, 11; 4, houses of correction for the punishment of 
slight offenses, 16; total, 71. They will hold 26,500 prisoners. Forty- 
seven prisons are provided, to a less or greater extent, with cells for 
separate imprisonment day and night, the whole number being 3,247. 

There is but one prison organized exclusively on the cellular system. 
There are, altogether, only 2,000 separate cells for isolation at night, a 
number (the report says) wholly insufficient, but it is increasing daily 
by new additions. 

There is no sensible difference between the two systems as regards 
reformatory results., The number of relapses has not been diminished by 
cellular treatment. Yet some remarkable reformations, even of hardened 
criminals, have been accomplished by cellular imprisonment, concerning 
which a doubt is expressed whether they could or would have been 
effected by imprisonment in common. The effect of cellular separation 
upon prisoners during their incarceration is said to be decidedly favor¬ 
able, and, in the comparison, superior to that of associated imprison¬ 
ment. 

The punishments awarded by virtue of the penal code are: 1, hard 


16 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


labor, tbe severest—inflicted for life or for a time ; minimum one year, 
maximum fifteen—draws after it compulsory labor, without restriction 
of kind or place, and various civil disabilities ; 2, simple imprisonment— 
maximum five years ; no compulsion to work outside of the prison or at 
occupations not in accord with the capacity of the prisoner and with his 
previous social position; 3, imprisonment in a fortress—inflicted for 
life or a time; maximum, in the latter case, fifteen years—is a simple 
privation of liberty, with supervision over the prisoner’s occupation and 
mode of life; 4, detention for trifling offenses—maximum six weeks— 
consists in a simple privation of liberty, but may be intensified by com¬ 
pulsory labor, when inflicted for vagrancy, begging, or professional 
prostitution. The minimum imprisonment under the last three kinds 
of sentence is one day. 

The classification of prisoners in Prussia goes little further than the 
separation of the younger from the older criminals. 

Prison officers rendered incapable of further service receive a peusion, 
whose amount is regulated by the laws regarding the retiring allow¬ 
ances of all other state officers. To gain a right to a pension, ten years 
must be served: the pension increases with each additional year of 
service. It can, however, never exceed three-fourths of the salary. 

(4) The prisons of Saxony are divided iuto the following classes: pris¬ 
ons for severe punishment, 2; prisons for less severe punishment, 3; 
prison in fortress, 1; reformatory prisons, 5; prisons belonging to 
courts of justice, (number not stated;) prisons belonging to police courts, 
(number not stated.) The average number of criminals for 1871 was: 
In the first class of prisons, 1,153; in the second class, 1,001; in a for¬ 
tress, 1; in reformatories, (otherwise called houses of correction,) G84; 
in the fifth and sixth classes, 1,800; total, 4,039. 

For more than twenty years there has been in Saxony a conviction 
that sentences of imprisonment should be undergone only for the expia¬ 
tion of crime, the protection of society, and to deter the prisoner from 
the commission of subsequent offenses. The Saxon government has, 
therefore, two principal objects in its penal system: the satisfaction of 
justice and the reformation of the prisoner. 

Since 1850 the penitentiary of Zuickau has been specially distinguished 
by a successful application of the principle of reformation by means of 
individual treatment. The Saxon government was in consequence 
induced to extend the same system to all its prisons. The government 
more readily placed confidence in the new method, because it works by no 
complicated apparatus, complies with existing circumstances, is based 
upon the principle of individual treatment, aud so combines different 
modes of imprisonment as to gain the best results. Thus, the common 
modes of imprisonment and treatment are excluded ; and, just as a phy¬ 
sician prescribes suitable medicine and diet for his patients, so the ad¬ 
ministration provides fit education, work, and food for its prisoners. 
The penitentiary of Zuickau gave proofs that this idea was not only 
theoretically right, but also practicable. The government, therefore, in 
1854, resolved that all the Saxon prisons should adopt the new regula¬ 
tions for internal management and the treatment oi prisoners. Accord¬ 
ingly, there is in Saxony no penitentiary where either solitary or col¬ 
lective imprisonment is exclusively employed; both modes are used, 
according to the prisoners’ individual wants. Saxony has eleven pris¬ 
ons where, especially during the last ten years, the reforms mentioned 
above have been carried out. 

(5) The prisons of the grand duchy of Wiirtemberg are: Prisons of 
reclusion, 4; country prisons, 3; fortress, 1; prison for minors, 1; dis- 


PRISON SYSTEMS-SAXONY-WURTEMBERG. 


17 


trict prisons, (number not stated.) Of tlie first class, two are exclusively 
for men, one exclusively for women, and one for prisoners of both sexes. 
Criminals sentenced to reclusion and hard labor are placed in these 
establishments. In the second class, sentences for minor offenses are 
undergone, the maximum of the imprisonment being for four weeks. 
The district prisons are mainly for persons under arrest, but minor 
offenders are also punished in them for a term not exceeding four 
weeks. 

The congregate system of impmonmeut, with common dormitories, 
still prevails in Wiirtemberg, although cells for isolated detention are 
found in all the prisons, some of which are used for separation at night 
and others for purposes of discipline. But it has been resolved to make 
trial of the cellular system, and to that end a special prison has been 
erected at Heilbronn, which is expected soon to be opened for the recep¬ 
tion of prisoners. 

The expense of maintaining the prisons, so far as it is not defrayed 
by the industrial labor and payments of the prisoners, is borne by the 
state, which, on the average, contributes about 35 per cent, of the total 
expense of prisons; the remaining 65 per cent, is derived from the in¬ 
come of the prisons themselves, but the prisoners 7 payments form only a 
small part of the amount. What comes from the prisoners is mostly the 
result of their labor. 

§ 6. The official report on the prisons of Italy commences with an 
explanation of the circumstances of the country. The various provinces 
of the Italian peninsula, divided for centuries into so many different 
states, at length united under the house of Savoy, brought with them 
to the union, each its own laws, institutions, and traditions. It is, 
therefore, not to be wondered at that there should be found in Italy a 
wide diversity in penal legislation, and, consequently, great variety in 
the punishments adopted and in the mode of carrying them out. 
Thus, the law of the Tuscan provinces had abolished capital 
punishment since 1859 ; the Neapolitan and Sicilian legislation 
still inflicted this sentence in twenty two cases; in other provinces 
of the kingdom capital punishment was decreed in twenty-seven 
cases. Again, the Tuscan provinces had adopted the system of con¬ 
tinual isolation ; others preferred and were adopting the Auburn system. 
Iu some provinces, fetters were in use both for males and females sen¬ 
tenced to a long imprisonment ; in others, they were entirely abolished. 
In some provinces, only those convicts sentenced to the heavier punish¬ 
ments were admitted into the bagnios; in others, these establishments 
served as prisons also to those sentenced only for a few years; in others, 
again, they were entirely proscribed. This diversity in the penal codes 
and the variety in the methods of incarceration could not be at once 
done away with, but the government is directing its efforts to the ref¬ 
ormation and complete unification of its penal legislation. 

For detention before trial there are the central or chief prisons of the 
provinces, the district prisons, and the communal jails, (number not 
stated.) For penal detention there are: Bagnios, for criminals sentenced 
to hard labor for life or a limited time, 21: bridewells, for prisoners 
sentenced to reclusion or public works, 11; prisons for those sentenced 
to relegation or banishment, 3; houses of correction, for persons sen¬ 
tenced to simple imprisonment, 6; special establishments, (classed under 
the general name of houses of punishment,) 10; special prisons for 
women, 5; houses of correction for juvenile convicts, (minors,) 4 ; estab¬ 
lishments for forced detention (reformatories) of idlers, vagabonds, and 
youths admitted by request of parents for correction, (which also receive 

H. Ex. 185--2 



18 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


juvenile offenders before trial,) 31; agricultural colonies, 2; penal estab¬ 
lishment for invalids, 1. 

Thejails and prisons, as varying in their systems of imprisonment, may 
thus be classified : two on the system of continued isolation ; two on the 
system partly of continued isolation and partly of association; five on 
the Auburn system complete; two partly on the Auburn system, partly 
on that of community, and forty-five on the community system. 

The question of establishing a hospital for lunatic convicts and a 
nautical reformatory is now under consideration by the central admin¬ 
istration. 

The average number of inmates of thejails (places of preliminary de¬ 
tention and minor punishments) for 1871 was 45,082; of the peniten¬ 
tiaries, 10,738; of the bagnios, 15,148; of the prisons for juvenile con¬ 
victs under age, 573. 

The system of continued isolation has been decreed for all detention- 
prisons. Several jails havebeen erected on this plan, others are in process 
of erection, and plaus for a still greater number are under study. 

In the sense of assigning prisoners to different penal establishments 
according to their crimes and sentences, a complete system of classification 
exists. In the detention-prisons, the following classes are, as much as 
possible, separated from each other: the arrested, (who are at the dis¬ 
posal of the authorities of public safety,) the accused awaiting trial, 
those sentenced for terms not exceeding a year, those detained in tran¬ 
sit or sentenced and awaiting transfer, women, minors, and persons 
imprisoned for debt. In the bagnios there are recognized four divisions, 
with separate dormitories for each. They are : those sentenced for mili¬ 
tary crimes or assaults, those sentenced for theft,those sentenced for high¬ 
way robbery, and those convicted of atrocious crimes, such as assassina¬ 
tion, homicide, &c. Each of these four divisions is subdivided into 
three categories, distinguished by marks on their dress, according to 
their terms of sentence. 

The funds for the support of the prisons are drawn from the general 
budget of the state. For the financial results of the prisoners’ labor, 
reference is made to the official statistics, for which examination the 
undersigned has no time. 

The pension to which the directors and officers of the prisons are 
entitled, after a service of at least twenty-five years, is determined on 
the same principle as that of every other officer in the civil service of the 
state. Thus, when retired after twenty-five years of service, they have 
as many fortieths of their salary, when it does not exceed two thousand 
Italian livres, and as many sixtieths when it is more than two thousand 
livres, as their years of service. But without regard to the twenty-five 
years of service there are cases of pensions granted to all classes of 
officers, when one becomes incapaciated by a wound caused by some 
extraordinary act performed in the discharg'e of his official duties, or by 
a disease contracted in the public service. 

§ 7. A commission of distinguished and able citizens was appointed 
by the government of the republic of Mexico, which the undersigned 
had the honor to represent in the Congress of London as well as that 
of the United States, to draw up a report in answer to the series of 
questions submitted to that as well as to the other governments, which 
were invited to take part in the movement. On the subject of the 
prison system of Mexico, the commission say that in the capital of the 
republic there are two prisons, one for those who are simply arrested 
and detained, and the other for adult prisoners who are to be tried or 
have been already sentenced. Young children sentenced to a term of 


PRISON SYSTEMS-ITALY-MEXICO-NETHERLANDS. 19 


imprisonment- are placed in an establishment called “ hospicio de los 
pobres,” (hospital of the poor.) For the punishment of criminal children 
between nine and eighteen years of age, there is a special establish¬ 
ment, where they receive an elementary religious education and learn 
a trade. 

The system of imprisonment is that of association. Its results are 
stated to have been very sad, the prisoners generally leaving the 
prisons worse than when they entered. Penitentiaries on the cellular 
system are in course of erection in several of the states. Only one has, 
so far, been completed. 

As regards the proportion contributed by the labor of the prisoners 
towards defraying the cost of maintaining the prisons, the commission 
reports only in relation to the Federal district* and Lower California, 
where it is from 40 to 50 per cent. 

§ 8. In the Netherlands four classes of prisons exist: The central 
prisons, for criminals sentenced to eighteen months and over; deten¬ 
tion-prisons, for terms of sentence less than eighteen months; houses 
of arrest, tor sentences of three months and under; and police or can¬ 
tonal prisons, for sentences not exceeding a month. The three classes 
last named also receive prisoners under arrest and awaiting trial. 
In some cases all three are united together, forming a single establish¬ 
ment. 

Both systems of imprisonment, cellular and associated, have place in 
the Netherlands. In no case, however, can cellular separation be ex¬ 
tended beyond a period of two years. The two systems are stated in 
the report to be applied not uniformly in the different prisons estab¬ 
lished on each plan, but in a manner quite irregular and little har¬ 
monious ; consequently the results obtained are not such as to permit a 
fair and reliable comparison. Hence, there exists in the country a 
great difference of opinion on the question of preference. Still, the 
cellular system, considered in itself, and apart from the manner of ap¬ 
plying it" and the limits to be imposed on it, scarcely encounters any 
adversaries; and, for short imprisonments, public opinion is well-nigh 
unanimous in its favor. 

The classification of prisoners does not seem to receive much atten¬ 
tion in the Netherlands. In the central prisons, the more hardened and 
dangerous, and those sentenced on re-conviction, are separated from 
the other prisoners. The results are reported as favorable. 

The funds for the support of the prisons are a charge upon the annual 
budget of the state. The part contributed by the labor of the prison¬ 
ers is quite inconsiderable. 

The pensions granted to prison-officers when they become incapaci¬ 
tated for further service are the same as those accorded to all other 
employes of the state. Beyond this statement no information is 
given. 

The general proportion in which the sexes are represented in the 
Netherlands prisons is about twenty women to a hundred men; but 
this proportion varies, especially in the different provinces. 

§ 9. There are four classes of prisous in Norway: Prisons established 
in fortresses, 3; houses of correction, 4; a penitentiary, 1; district-pris¬ 
ons, (corresponding to our common jails,) 56. 

The system of imprisonment is that of association in the fortresses 
and houses of correction, and of separation in the penitentiary, and, 
to a very considerable extent, also, in the district prisons. 

The sentences to the penitentiary range from six mouths to six years ; 
but these sentences are shortened one-third, because of the system of 


20 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


imprisonment (cellular) applied there. No comparison of results yielded 
"by the two systems is given. 

The average number of prisoners in the fortresses is 217: in the 
houses of correction, 940; in the penitentiary, 224; in the district 
prisons, not stated. The proportion of women in the district prisons 
cannot be accurately ascertained from the statistical returns; but in 
the penal establishments it is nearly one fourth. 

No classification of the prisoners is carried out in the prisons based 
on the system of association, but, in distributing the prisoners in the 
work rooms and dormitories, care is taken to keep the less corrupted 
prisoners separate, as far as possible, from tbe older and more danger¬ 
ous criminals. In the penitentiary has been introduced a system of 
progressive classification, based on the zeal and merit of the prisoners, 
through which some mitigation of their punishment is gradually af¬ 
forded, by way of allowing the prisoners, to a larger extent than be¬ 
fore, to read, write, receive the visits of their relatives, work in the 
open air, &c. 

The pensions allowed to prison-officers on retirement are not regu¬ 
lated by law, but are matter of parliamentary grant in each individual 
case. 

The expenses of the penal institutions are defrayed out of the ex¬ 
chequer, less the proceeds of the prison-labor. These expenses, in 1872, 
were 203,410 thalers, of which 109,970 thalers were met by the earnings 
of the prisoners, leaving 93,440 thalers to be supplied by the state. 
The expenses of the district prisons are paid by the districts in which 
they are severally situated. Nevertheless the exchequer has to pay for 
medicines, medical attendance, spiritual assistance, and the necessary 
clothing of the prisoners ; besides which the district receives from the 
exchequer an allowance of 24 skilling, equal to 11 d. sterling, a day for 
every prisoner. The balance to be paid by the district after these va¬ 
rious grants cannot, one would think, be very onerous. 

§ 10. The report submitted to the congress on the part of Russia was 
drawn up by Count Sollohub, president of the imperial commission re¬ 
cently appointed to devise a new penitentiary system for the Russian 
Empire. The count explains, in his introductory remarks, that a de¬ 
tailed description of the system now in operation in Russia is impossi¬ 
ble, and, if possible, could not give an exact idea of things, since the 
penitentiary question in his country is at this moment passing through 
a transitional phase, a radical reform being proposed and certain ex¬ 
periments having been already commenced. Russia is thus between 
two systems, one acknowledged to be unsatisfactory and the other but 
just dawning, with its methods and measures yet undeveloped. From 
a scientific point of view, such a transitional phase might be interest¬ 
ing, but it could not give precise statements either as to what exists 
now or what is to exist hereafter. These considerations caused hesita¬ 
tion in respect to the preparation of any report to be handed in to the 
congress, but it was finally concluded to prepare and submit a report, 
under the reserve that it is to be regarded, not as the exposition of a 
system, but rather as a short sketch of the traditions of the country. 

The existing laws of Russia relating to the arrested and the sentenced 
are divided into two parts, the first referring to the imprisoned, the 
second to the transported. The following is the present classification 
of prisons: 1. Prisons properly so called, (ostrogs,) established in all the 
towns of the empire. Originally they were merely places of safe-keep¬ 
ing, the actual punishment being either bodily inflictions or deportation 
to the farthest limits of the empire, with a treatment of greater or less 


PRISON SYSTEMS-NORWAY-RUSSIA-SWITZERLAND. 21 


severity. More recently they have been used for punishment in cases 
where the imprisonment does not exceed a year and four months. 2. 
Prisons lor arrest. This must not be confounded with preliminary 
arrest, where the detention is merely that of safe custody. It is a true 
punishment, which is inflicted by justices of the peace for slight offenses 
and cannot exceed three months. 3. Houses of amendment and labor, 
established by the Empress Catherine, probably under the influence of 
Howard, to whom Russia owes her first notions of the humane treat¬ 
ment of prisoners. 4. Prisons for industrial sections or companies. 
These companies, sentenced to labor on public works, formerly under 
the jurisdiction of the minister of ways and communications, have lately 
passed into that of the minister of the interior. Sentences to this class 
of prisons cannot now exceed four years, though formerly they might 
be extended to twelve. 

The system of associated imprisonment in rooms still exists in Russia, 
with some exceptions; for example, in the ostrogs of the first class there 
are separate cells. 

* The result of imprisonment in common by day and night, and also of 
deportation, has been found lamentable. It has created in Russia, a 
class of vagrants and worthless characters ( proletaires) not in harmony 
either with the fertility of the soil or the communal constitution of the 
country. The system individually preferred by the writer of the report 
is the following: 1, that of civil imprisonment for the accused awaiting 
trial j 2, that of cellular imprisonment for the convicted undergoing 
short sentences, with a reduction of two-thirds of the punishment as 
compared with the duration of collective imprisonment; 3, for houses 
of correction and convict prisons, that of separation by night in small 
cells open at the top, arranged in large common dormitories, well ven¬ 
tilated, well lighted, and under constant supervision, with labor in 
common workshops. The report opposes cellular imprisonment for long 
periods, on the ground that it must either render the prisoner torpid, or 
produce in him such a constant feeling of restraint as will necessarily 
paralyze the play and development of his individual will, sole means of 
his regeneration. 

Classification of the prisoners is rigidly required by the Russian 
legislation, but the bad condition of many of the prison edifices, and 
especially the lack of space, restricts it to the separation of the sexes 
and of persons arrested from those who are undergoing their punish¬ 
ment. 

The prisons derive their support mainly from the treasury of the 
state. The earnings of the prisoners have thus far be.en inconsiderable, 
especially when considered in comparison with the vast population and 
the immense productive power of the empire. 

The system of pensions is uniform for all public functionaries. What 
that system is is not stated. 

§ 11. The prisons of Switzerland may be divided into four groups: 
1, those of five cantons are administered on a kind of patriarchal sys¬ 
tem, (whatever that may mean,) by sisters of charity ; 2, those of three 
other cantons are administered on a different system, but leaving much 
to be desired in the way of improvements ; 3, nine cantons have prisons 
of medium excellence, some of which are advancing toward the first 
rank; 4, four cantons, Argovie, Baleville, Neufchatel, and Tessin, have 
penitentiaries of a higher grade of excellence, into which has been in¬ 
troduced, in different degrees and under various modifications, the pro¬ 
gressive Croftou system. 

The system of congregate imprisonment predominates; but effort is 


22 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


made to introduce cellular separation, especially at night. There is a 
general agreement that the system of association is favorable to indus¬ 
trial labor, and not unfavorable to discipline, but that, when extended 
to the dormitories as well as to the workshops, it is obstructive to the 
moral education of the prisoners. 

Penitentiary training, it is held in Switzerland, imperatively requires 
cellular separation, at least in the initial stage; and it is on this sole con¬ 
dition that the prisoners can effectively enter into communion with 
themselves, a process which would be impeded by the contact and influ¬ 
ence of some, at least, of their fellow-prisoners. 

After the cellular stage, it is considered expedient to allow those 
prisoners to work together who furnish ground of hope that a moral 
reformation has been, or may be, accomplished in them. It is under 
these conditions that associated labor is found in recently-constructed 
penitentiaries. 

The public opinion of Switzerland shows itself more and more favora¬ 
ble to the progressive Orofton penitentiary system, with conditional and 
revocable liberation. The exclusively cellular system should be reserved t 
(so it is thought) for houses of preliminary detention, and for them it 
should be the only system in use. 

A methodical classification of prisoners exists only in the more re¬ 
cently constructed prisons, which are conducted, as far as circumstances 
permit, on the general principles of the Orofton system. There are, 
however, no intermediate prisons in Switzerland, and, consequently, 
wherever the Orofton system has been introduced, its application is 
carried out in one and the same establishment. The financial resources 
of no single canton would permit the realization of such a system, which 
could be applied only by a union of funds of several cantons directed to 
that end. Besides which, public opinion, more or less imbued with the 
old ideas of intimidation and vengeance, is not yet ripe for such a 
change. 

The treasury of each canton covers the deficit resulting from the dif¬ 
ference between the total expenditure and the special receipts of its 
prisons, which receipts are composed of the proceeds of the prisoners’ 
labor and moneys paid by cantons that place their convicts in the peni¬ 
tentiaries of other cantons of the confederation. In several of the can¬ 
tons, where the prisons are best organized and industrial labor best 
managed, the industries yield an income approaching, and in one or 
two instances covering, the current expenses of the establishments, not 
including, however, the salaries of officers, the cost of repairs, or the 
peculium paid to the prisoners. 

Pensions are granted only in exceptional cases to public functionaries, 
when they become incapacitated for further service. This rule applies 
to prison-officers, as to all others. 

§ 12. There are in Sweden: 1, cellular penitentiary prisons in each prov¬ 
ince ; 2, central prisons on the associated system—some for women, others 
for men ; 3, houses of arrest in certain small towns and districts. 

The cellular prisons are used for the accused during the preliminary 
proceedings, for prisoners sentenced to hard labor for two years anil 
under, for prisoners sentenced only to reclusion, and for those who, 
not having the means to pay the fines imposed on them, are required to 
render an equivalent in the form of imprisonment on bread and water. 
Some prisons on the associated plan are used for persons sentenced to 
hard labor for life, and others for those sentenced to hard labor for a 
term exceeding two years. 

The results of cellular imprisonment for those awaiting trial and for 


PRISON SYSTEMS-SWEDEN-UNITED STATES. 


23 


sentenced prisoners released at furthest after two years’ imprisonment 
have been favorable. Congregate*prisons, such as they still exist in 
Sweden, having dormitories in common for forty to one hundred and 
thirty prisoners each, are regarded, in spite of the strictest supervision, 
as nurseries of vice and crime. In those associated prisons where a 
separation takes place at night, and in which, the prisoners work in small 
groups in common workshops by day, the results are found to be favorable. 
The official report on the prisons of Sweden was drawn up and is 
signed by Mr. Almquist, director general of prisons for that kingdom, 
who says: “Of all known penitentiary systems, it appears tome that 
the most excellent is the Crofton or progressive system, adopted in 
Ireland, with its special stages, through which the prisoners are required 
to pass.” 

No classification of prisoners exists, beyond that of separating the 
sexes, and, as far as possible, young prisoners from the older and more 
hardened ones, in the common dormitories of the associated prisons. 

Prisoners not yet sentenced and those sentenced simply to reclusion 
are not compelled to work. They spend their time as they like, work¬ 
ing, reading, &c. They may procure better food and more comforts than 
the prison supplies, provided they do not thereby interfere with the 
order and security of the prison. Prisoners sentenced to hard labor 
must do the work set them, and are restricted rigidly to the prison fare. 

On attaining the age of fifty five, prison-officers have the right to 
retire from the service on a pension of two-thirds of their salary; those 
who serve till they are sixty-five generally receive from the Parliament 
a pension equal to their whole salary. 

§ 13. The North American Republic is composed of nearly forty States 
with local self-government, and a dozen dependencies not yet elevated 
to the rank of States. These fifty jurisdictions are, in matters of crime 
and punishment, independent of each other, and very little controlled by 
the National Government. They vary in antiquity from Virginia, New 
York, and Massachusetts, which have been inhabited by the Indo-Euro¬ 
pean races for more than two centuries and a half, to the new Territories 
of Dakota and Montana, which ten years ago were occupied only by 
roving savage tribes; and/ consequently, almost every variety of social 
condition prevails in this vast area, larger than half of Europe and more 
populous at this moment thau any European nation except Russia. 

As a nation, the United States have existed for nearly a century, their 
separation from the British Empire being coeval with the first improve¬ 
ment of prisons, resulting from the labors of John Howard. Conse¬ 
quently, the prison system of America, like all the modern systems, 
dates no further back than 1784, when the old Walnut Street prison of 
Philadelphia was built, and the first organized effort to improve prison 
discipline in the United States was made by the Pennsylvania Society 
for alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, of which Dr. Franklin was 
one of the founders, in 1787. The National Government, as now estab¬ 
lished by the Federal Constitution of 1787, dates from the same period; 
but it has never much concerned itself as a Government with the prison 
system of the country, its first step in that direction being the appoint¬ 
ment of the undersigned in 1871, as a commissioner to the International 
Prison Congress of London. Whatever has been done, therefore, has 
been the work of the separate States of the Union, and almost wholly 
within the present century. The oldest penitentiary now in use is prob¬ 
ably that of Massachusetts, at Charlestown, near Boston, which was 
begun in 1800 and first received convicts in 1805. Among the county- 
jails there are probably a few older thau this, but the greater number. 


24 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


both of state and county prisons, have been built since the beginning 
of the world-wide controversy between the advocates of the cellular or 
Pennsylvania system and the silent or Auburn system,-now generally 
known as the separate and the congregate systems of prison management. 
This controversy, opened in America about half a century ago, took a 
concrete and practical form with the opening of the Auburn and Sing- 
Sing penitentiaries in the State of New York, built on the congregate 
plan, with separation at night in single cells, and the two penitentiaries 
of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia and at Pittsburgh, built on the separate 
plan, with cellular imprisonment day and night for each convict. New 
Jersey and Rhode Island, in imitation of the eastern and western peni¬ 
tentiaries of Pennsylvania, introduced the cellular system into their 
state-prisons, respectively; but those States abandoned the system 
years ago, and more recently it has been given up at the western peni¬ 
tentiary of Pittsburgh. So the result of the controversy in the United 
States is that cellularism exists only at the Cherry Hill prison, or east¬ 
ern penitentiary, in Philadelphia; in some of the county-jails of Penn¬ 
sylvania ; in the Suffolk County jail in Boston ; and possibly a few other 
prisons of the same class. The proportion of prisoners confined on the 
separate plan in the whole United States is about one to thirty, or in the 
neighborhood of 3 per cent. It is therefore evident that the system of 
association, as opposed to that of cellularism, is the one which prevails 
in the United States. Nevertheless, it is believed that the enlightened 
friends of prison reform in this country very generally prefer the system 
of complete separation for all prisons of preliminary detention, and, 
moreover, that they would prefer the restriction of all detention prisons 
to the purpose of safe keeping alone, while minor offenses, they hold, 
might better receive their punishment in district-prisons, forming a 
middle class of penitentiaries between the detention-prison and the state- 
prison, in which reformatory principles and processes might be more 
hopefully applied than they are now or ever can be in the county-jails. 

The broad distinction of American prisons is that stated above, viz, 
into state-prisons and county-jails. States are the Federal unit of the 
American republic, and of these there are thirty-seven; but the units 
of each State are the counties , numbering, in the whole country, about 
2,100. In each of these counties there is, or may be, a county-prison, 
and in some of them there are two, three, or four. In the thirty-seven 
States there are now thirty-nine state-prisons and two state work- 
houses; the latter in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In two States, 
Florida and Delaware, there are as yet no state-prisons; in Pennsyl¬ 
vania and Indiana there are two each, and in New York there are three. 
Reckoning about forty state-prisons in all, the average number of their 
inmates, for the last year or two, has been about 10,000; but for the 
last year the number has been increasing. Of this average number, 
the State of New York has furnished about 2,700 in its three great 
prisons; Illinois, 1,300 in its one prison ; Ohio, a little more than 1,000; 
Pennsylvania, a little less than 1,000; Massachusetts, (including the 
workhouse convicts,) nearly 000; California, almost 800; and Missouri 
nearly 900; so that these seven States supply about one-half the convicts 
of the higher grades of crime. The same is true of the inmates of the 
city, county, and district prisons of all grades, who, in these seven 
States, average now probably nearly 10,000, out of a total in the whole 
country of perhaps 22,000. These numbers are nothing more than 
careful estimates, while the average in the state-prisons is quite exactly 
computed, the fact being that nobody knows precisely the number of 
the county-jails in the United States, much less the average of their 


PRISON SYSTEMS-ENGLAND-IRELAND. 


25 


inmates; nor is the number of the town and city prisons known, nor 
the average of their inmates. The district-prisons—intermediate be¬ 
tween the state and county prisons—are few in number, and are very 
well known. These four classes—municipal, (town and city,) county 
district, and state-prisons—include all places of confinement in the 
United States, except for juvefiile offenders. 

In all these prisons, of all classes, when the last census was taken, 
(June 1, 1870,) the number reported in confinement was 32,208, but this 
is known to have been too small. The true number, even at that season 
of the year—the summer—when the fewest persons are iu prison, was 
not less than 35,000, and in the winter of the same year it no doubt 
rose to more than 40,000, with an average number through the year of 
at least 38,000. If we suppose the same to be the average number in 
confinement during 1871, and 16,000 to be the average number of state- 
prison convicts, (neither being far from the true number,) it is probable 
that 8,000 of the remaining 22,000, and perhaps even half that number, 
(which would be 11,000,) are held in jail awaiting trial or sentence, 
while from 11,000 to 14,000 are under sentence in the minor prisons of 
counties and districts, for offenses of less criminality than are punished 
in the state-prisons. As for the sex of these prisoners, if we confine 
ourselves to general statements, we shall be within bounds in saying 
that not more than one in six of the 38,000 persons mentioned as the 
average prison-population of the whole United States are women. 
The proportion is much less than this in prisons of the highest grades; 
that is to say, the state-prisons. 

§ 14. Prison management has been made a subject of study and dis¬ 
cussion in England for more than a century. An interesting and able 
review of the progress of things in this department of the public serv¬ 
ice is given by Major Du Cane, chairman of the directors of convict- 
prisons, in the report which, by direction of the British government, he 
submitted to the penitentiary congress. It would occupy too much 
space to give even the most condensed summary of this history, and 
the undersigned limits himself, therefore, as in the case of other 
countries, to a brief exposition of the actual penitentiary system of 
England as applied in the convict or state prisons, and set forth in the 
paper of Major Du Cane. 

The English convict-system is devised with a view to combine the 
principle of deterrence with that of reformation. While the importance 
of the latter of these principles is admitted, the former is held to be 
paramount, because punishment (such is the theory) is designed primarily 
to prevent crime by the warning thereby held up to those who might, 
but for such deterreut influence, fall into it. 

The sentence to penal servitude in England is divided into three prin¬ 
cipal stages. The first stage is passed at Pentonville or Millbank, and 
lasts nine months in all cases. During that period the prisoner passes 
his whole time, except the periods allotted to prayers and exercise, alone 
in his cell, working at some employment of an industrial or remuner¬ 
ative character. The second stage is passed in a prison in which he 
sleeps and has his meals in a separate cell, but works in association un¬ 
der a close supervision. The third period is that during which he is 
conditionally released from prison, but is kept under the supervision of 
the police, and made liable for any infraction of the conditions of his 
release, the consequence of which is that he is to be returned to prison, 
there to fulfill the whole of the remitted portion of his sentence. A stage 
intermediate between the second and the conditional release is applied 
to women, who may be sent to “refuges” for six mouths before their re- 


26 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


lease on license. The refuges are establishments managed by private 
persons who interest themselves in preparing the women for discharge 
and in procuring suitable situations for them. 

Cellular seclusion for long periods has been found in England to have 
an enfeebling effect upon the prisoner. When the system was first es¬ 
tablished, the duration of the time of separation was fixed at eighteen 
mouths ; but such results followed that, after various experiments, the 
present period of nine months has been fixed upon as the longest to 
which prisoners can, with advantage, be subjected to this stage of the 
discipline. A stage of separate imprisonment is held in England to be 
indispensable to the best effects of convict treatment. It is not only in 
itself a severe penal discipline, but the mind of the convict is thereby 
thrown in upon itself; he becomes accessible to lessons of admonition 
and warning; religious influences act upon him with greater force, and 
he is put into a condition in which he is likely to feel sorrow for the 
past and to welcome the words of those who show him how to avoid 
evil in the time to come. 

There are eleven convict-prisons in England, eight of which are ex¬ 
clusivity for males, two exclusively for females, and one mixed. The 
aggregate capacity of these prisons is : males, 8,764; females, 1,239; 
total, 10,003, exclusive of infirmary and punishment cells. The average 
except for number of prisoners is 7,833, of whom 1,100 are women. 

Two of the convict-prisons, and parts of two others, are on the sepa¬ 
rate plan, but separate cells are provided for all prisoners at night, 
invalids of certain classes and some of the women. 

In all but two of the convict-prisons—Pentonville and Millbauk—the 
prisoners work in association. 

The pensions granted to retiring prison-officers are regulated upon 
the same general principles as those accorded to other civil officers. 

The whole number of borough and county jails in England is one 
hundred and twenty-two, of which thirty-five belong to the first class 
and eighty-seven to the second. There is no difference between these 
two classes of prisons, except that the county-prisons are governed by 
the county-magistrates, and the borough-prisons by the borough-mag¬ 
istrates. The aggregate capacity of both classes is 27,169. The aver¬ 
age period of imprisonment is less than one month. Three-fourths of 
the prisoners have terms under a month and the remaining one-fourth 
under six months. Less than one in a thousand have an imprisonment 
exceeding the last-named period. 

As a rule all prisoners are separated at night. In many prisons they 
work to a certain extent in association, but under such supervision as 
the governors consider sufficient to prevent communication. 

§ 15. The world—that is, the part of it interested in penitentiary 
questions—may almost be said to know the Irish convict-prison system 
by heart.* 

This system consists of three, or, including the period of provisional 
liberation, four, stages. 

The first stage is that of cellular imprisonment. Its duration varies 
from eight to nine months, according to the conduct of the prisoner. 
During this first stage the imprisonment has a character intensely penal. 
r £he work required is rude and uniuterestiug, and the rations furnished 
are moderate in quantity and coarse in quality. The aim of this rigor 
is to cause the prisoner to enter, as it were, into himself, and to produce 

*This has heretofore been commonly known as the Irish prison system, but is now 
coining to be designated as the Crofton system, in compliment to the eminent man who 
devised and first put it in practice.—E. C. W. 



PRISON ADMINISTRATION-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM-DENMARK. 27 


upon his soul a lasting impression. The prisoner, however, during this 
initial stage, is made thoroughly acquainted with the whole system and 
with all the advantages that will accrue to him in his progress toward 
liberty, if he takes kindly to it and is uniformerly well-behaved and 
attentive to all his duties. 

The second stage is passed irr a congregate prison, with separation at 
night and associated labor during the day. The prisoner is here sub¬ 
jected to a much milder treatment, and his condition is improved more or 
less rapidly according to his conduct. He receives each month a certain 
number of marks which determine his advance from one class to another, 
for the essential principle of this second stage is that of a progressive 
classification, based on good conduct and merit. There are fourdasses. 
Each class marks a change in the prisoner’s situation and a mitigation 
of his punishment. On reaching the fourth class he no longer wears 
the prison-garb; he is employed on special works; he enjoys many 
privileges; and he may almost be said to approach the state of liberty. 
It is this second stage which really characterizes the system. It is so ar¬ 
ranged and adjusted as to becomean effective trial of tae prisoner. If he 
is steadfast in his good resolutions and good conduct, he passes on from 
class to class; if, on the contrary, he is ill-disposed and disobedient, he 
is degraded to an inferior class, even to the lowest, if his conduct be such 
as to merit such severity. The convict who has successfully passed 
through this series of trials is adjudged to be prepared for a state of 
comparative freedom, and he is consequently admitted into the inter¬ 
mediate prison. 

This constitutes the third stage in the Crofton system. Here the im¬ 
prisonment is little more than moral. The prisoner wears the dress of a 
freeman, works on a large farm with his fellows, attends the village church, 
and is subjected to little more restraint of any kind than an ordinary free 
laborer. This is, in effect, a probationary stage, and is designed to test 
the genuineness of his reformation. It is, for him, so to speak, the ap¬ 
prenticeship and prelude of liberty. If he hold out to the end in a 
good course of conduct, he receives a ticket of license and becomes 
conditionally free. The duration of his imprisonment may thus be 
shortened to the extent of a fourth part. But if, on the other hand, his 
conduct is evil, he is remanded to the associated, or even to the cellular 
prison, to work his way up again by the same painful and painstaking 
process as before. 

The fourth stage of the Crofton system is that of conditional or pre- 
iminary liberation, which need not be particularly described. It will 
thus be seen that Sir Walter Crofton has devised a complete system of 
penal treatment; one which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and 
which is, at one and the same time, penal and reformatory. 


CHAPTER II. 

PRISON ADMINISTRATION. 

§ 1. All the prisons of Austria are under the jurisdiction of the min¬ 
istry of justice, which shares its powers of administration with two other 
classes of authority—local and intermediate. All matters of minor im¬ 
portance, which are naturally the most numerous, are attended to by 
the local authorities, and those of a graver character by the intermedi¬ 
ate authorities. It is only questions of the highest importance that are 
submitted to the decision of the ministry of justice. The ministry of 



28 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


justice, as tbe central authority over all prisons, is by law empowered 
to appoint an official, from its own office, as the representative of the 
minister, and to entrust him with the supervision and guidance of all 
prisons. But, since 1867, an inspector-general of prisons has been ap¬ 
pointed. 

The ministry of justice appoints the directors of male prisons, the in¬ 
spectors of female prisons, the chaplains, the book-keepers, and the 
financial and medical officers. The subordinate officers are named, in 
certain prisons, by the local, and in others by the intermediate author¬ 
ities. The tenure of office is, as with all the servants of the state, with¬ 
out limit, that is, during good behavior. 

§ 2. In Belgium, as in Austria, the ministry of justice has all pris¬ 
ons under its jurisdiction. The penitentiary of Louvain has a commis¬ 
sion charged with the inspection and supervision of that establishment. 
There are also commissions charged with the general supervision of the 
other prisons, and constituting administrative boards, invested with the 
right of investigating and redressing abuses, of proposing and introduc¬ 
ing reforms to the advantage of the service, of grautingto the employes 
leave of absence for five days, and of imposing upon them certain dis¬ 
ciplinary punishments. The appointment of the directors and assist¬ 
ant directors is by royal decree. The other functionaries and employes 
of the prisons are named by the minister of justice. There is no limit to 
the tenure of office ; it belongs to the government to judge whether the 
functionary ought to be retained or dismissed. 

§ 3. No information is given in the report from Denmark concern¬ 
ing the prison-administration of that country, except what is contained 
in the single brief statement that “ a director of prisons has the control 
of all the prisons.” It is to be presumed that there are some limitations 
to his powers,* but what they are, the undersigned is unable to state. 

§ 4. The prisons of France, except those of Paris, depend upon a 
central power, which is represented by the minister of the interior, and, 
under him, by the director of the administration of prisons. 

The central power exercises its control by means of general inspec¬ 
tions, made by special functionaries—namely, in spec tors-general of 
prisons. Besides this direct and most important control, there is a local 
control of the prefects for all the prisons and penitentiary establish¬ 
ments ; of the mayors and commissions of supervision for the houses of 
arrest, of justice, and of correction; and, finally, of the council of super¬ 
vision for the colonies of correctional education of juvenile delinquents. 

The director of the administration of prisons is charged with admin¬ 
istering, under the authority of the minister of the interior, the prisons 
and penitentiary establishments of every class in France. Under him, 
and as a deliberative consultative board, is found the council of inspect- 
ors-general of prisons, which is called upon, in the interval of their 
tours of inspection, to give advice on the more important questions of 
the service. The instructions and regulations emanating from the cen¬ 
tral administration are addressed, through the intervention of the pre¬ 
fects, who represent the executive power in the departments, to the di¬ 
rectors of the different establishments. At the head of each central 
prison is found a director. His action extends to all parts of the serv¬ 
ice. He is specially charged with conducting the correspondence with 
the minister of the interior, to whom he addresses his reports on the 
financial, industrial, and disciplinary condition of the establishment, 
through the agency of the prefects, except in urgent and extraordinary 
cases. Directors of the houses of arrest, of justice, and of correction 
are charged with the administration of those establishments in one or 
more departments. In the prisons situated at the place of their resi- 


PRISON ADMINISTRATION-FRANCE-BADEN-BAVARIA. 29 

deuce their action makes itself felt directly, like that of the director of 
a ceutral prison, on all parts of the service, and in the other prisons 
indirectly through the agency of the principal keepers, who receive 
their instructions and are required to address to them frequent reports. 
An important part of their functions has reference to the economical 
administration of the prisons, to purchases, to the verification of ex¬ 
penses, to the control of the accounts, cash, and material; in short, to 
the preparation of the various financial documents which they send to 
the central administration. The principal keepers are the agents charged 
with the care and supervision of the houses of arrest, of justice, and of 
correction. 

In the central prisons and other similar establishments the function¬ 
aries, employes, and agents, to whichever department of the service 
they may be attached, are named by the minister of the interior. 

As regards the houses of arrest, of justice, and of correction, the func¬ 
tionaries and employes proposed for the administration are named by 
the minister, and the employes of the other services are named by the 
prefects, as also the agents of supervision other than the chief keepers. 
Still, these appointments do not become definitive till they have received 
the ministerial approval. 

By the terms of the law of the 5th August, 1850, relative to the edu¬ 
cation of juvenile delinquents, every private penitentiary colony is gov¬ 
erned by a responsible director, approved by the minister of the interior. 
The employes placed under the orders of the director must be, in like 
manner, approved by the prefect. 

In the department of the Seine, where the prisons are managed, in 
many of their relations, under authority of special provisions, the direct¬ 
ors are named by the minister of the interior, on presentation by the 
prefect of police; .the other employes are named by the prefect. In 
effect, it is the prefect of police who, in Paris, administers the peniten¬ 
tiary establishments. 

The inspectors-general of prisons and penitentiary establishments are 
named by the minister of the interior. 

The duration of the functions of the different employes composing the 
personnel of the penitentiary service is not limited by any determinate 
time. The agents who have not been gravely derelict in the exercise of 
their functions continue in place till they have reached the age at least 
of sixty and have been in service thirty years. 

§5. The several states of the German Empire represented in the con¬ 
gress report as follows: 

(1) All the prisons of the Grand Duchy of Baden are under the control 
of the minister of justice and foreign affairs, who exercises over them 
complete administrative power. There is, however, a council of inspection 
for all the larger penitentiary establishments. This council decides on 
the complaints of prisoners and the admissibility of administrative pro¬ 
ceedings against the inferior prison officers when such proceedings are 
beyond the cognizance of the director, confirms the contracts entered 
into by the administration for the supplies of the prison, and gives the 
necessary order, if desirable in any case, to substitute collective for soli¬ 
tary imprisonment. The superior officers are appointed by the grand 
duke, the inferior officers by the minister of justice; their appointment 
is for life. 

(2) All the prisons of Bavaria are under the jurisdiction of the min¬ 
istry of justice. The direction and inspection of prisons where impris¬ 
onment of more than three months is undergone belongs exclusively to 
this ministry, without the action of any intermediate authorities; the 


30 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


inspection of tlie other prisons is by local officers. For the cellular 
prison at Nurnberg, there exists a special council of inspection, consist¬ 
ing of state officials, judges, district-attorneys, and prison-officials, to¬ 
gether with private persons belonging to Niirnberg. The directors and 
administrators are appointed by the King; the chaplains, doctors, teach¬ 
ers, stewards, and technical instructors by the ministry of .justice; the 
keepers and clerks by the director of each prison. The directors and 
administrators only are appointed for life, but the other officers also look 
upon the service as one in which their life is to be spent. As a rule, 
officials quit the prison service either in the beginning, when their incli¬ 
nations are against this work, or when it becomes apparent that they 
have not the necessary capacity, or on their being appointed to higher 
posts. 

(3) In Prussia there is no central authority having control of all the 
different classes of prisons. The local prisons, designed exclusively for 
preliminary detention and for punishments of short duration, are under 
the control of the minister of justice, while the great penitentiary estab¬ 
lishments belong to the jurisdiction of the minister of the interior, who 
decides upon the general principles which are to regulate the economic 
administration of each prison and the treatment of the prisoners under 
the relations of discipline, religious and scholastic instruction, labor, 
clothing, and food. He causes inspections to be regularly made of the 
several penitentiary establishments by the high functionary attached to 
his ministry, who is specially charged with the oversight of prisons; and 
he decides, in the last resort, on all matters of complaint presented to 
him either by prisoners or by employes. 

All other matters appertaining to the control and administration of 
the prisons are attended to by the administrative authorities of the 
provinces. To these especially belong the permanent control to be exer¬ 
cised over the employment of the moneys assigned to each establish¬ 
ment; over the details of the economic and industrial administration; 
over the treatment of the prisoners, whether in point of discipline or in 
other respects; and over the conduct and fidelity of the employes of the 
prison. In this view, every establishment is inspected by members of 
the provincial authorities delegated to that duty, at intervals not exceed¬ 
ing the lapse of some months. 

The minister of the interior apppoints the directors and superior offi¬ 
cers of the prisons; the subaltern officers are appointed by the provin¬ 
cial authorities. The superior officers, after a certain period of trial, 
are appointed for life. The subalterns are liable to dismissal; yet, 
after some years of blameless conduct, they also are appointed for life. 

(4) There exists in Saxony no one central authority for the admin¬ 
istration of the penitentiary system. 

The administrative authority rests, except in prisons belonging to 
courts of justice and police, in the hands of the ministry of the interior. 
The ministry of justice takes cognizance, by commissioners, of the 
manner in which the sentence is carried out, and also controls the 
domestic arrangements. The prisons belonging to courts of justice, in 
which imprisonment not exceeding four months can be undergone, are 
superintended by the ministry of justice, which has issued remarkable 
orders relating to the spiritual care and the industrial occupation of the 
prisoners. Neither the text nor the purport, however, of these orders 
is given in the report submitted to the congress. 

(5) The economic and correctional administration of all the prisons 
of Wurtemberg is controlled by a central authority, which also ex¬ 
ercises supervision over district-prisons for preliminary detention and 


PRISON ADMINISTRATION-PRUSSIA-SAXONY, ETC. 31 

minor punishments. The central authority is subordinate to the minis¬ 
ter of justice. It is composed of members of the departments of justice, 
of the interior, and of finance; it has likewise attached to it some 
skilled ecclesiastical members, a doctor, an architect, and a merchant. 

The directors and the chief officers of the administration are appointed 
by the King, on the nomination of the minister of justice, who first con¬ 
sults the commissioners for prisons. These appointments are generally 
tor life. The subordinate officers are appointed by the commissioners 
for prisons. 

§ 6. The whole of the detention and penitentiary administration of the 
prisons of Italy, whether as regards the buildings, regulations, officers, 
discipline, or general supervision, is superintended by one central 
authority, which forms the general prison board and depends on the 
ministry of the interior. This board is composed of the director-general, 
four inspectors, and three departments, one of which is intrusted with 
the supervision of the directive, sanitary, and religious officers and 
jailors, another attends to the financial administration; and the third 
regulates whatever refers to the construction of the buildings and the 
wants of the prisoners. Besides this, there is an office of statistics, a 
technical officer of engineers, and a copying-office, each of these having 
special employes and special work. 

All these branches of prison administration are concentrated in the 
general director, who, in his turn, regulates the service, seconded by 
the consultative vote of a council of administration and discipline, com¬ 
posed of at least two central inspectors, and the director of that de¬ 
partment to which is intrusted the special subject under discussion. 
Nor does it seem possible otherwise to direct an administration so vast, 
and one requiring, as an indispensable rule, the most perfect unison in 
thought and regulation, to carry into effect the principle that ‘‘every 
citizen is equal in the eyes of the law.” 

The directors and officers of the prisons, whether central or local, are 
nam‘ed by royal decree; the keepers and foremen by decree of the min¬ 
ister of the interior, on the proposal of the director-general. 

The tenure of office for the higher functionaries is for life; nor can 
they be removed, except for causes which would render them unfit for 
the service or unworthy of a place among the officers of the state. The 
keepers are chosen for six years. As to the foremen, their engagements 
with the penitentiary administration depend, in each case, on special 
arrangements. 

§ 7. There is no central power in Mexico which controls the peniten¬ 
tiary administration of the whole country. The prisons in each munici¬ 
pality are under the care of a commission. The prisons of each state 
are subject to inspection by the governor of the state. In Mexico it¬ 
self, (city and district,) the governor and home secretary have a power 
of inspection. 

§ 8. All the prisons in the Netherlands are under the supreme .direc¬ 
tion of the minister of justice, and the general inspection of the prisons 
is made by an inspector, who has his deputy in the bureau of the de¬ 
partment of justice. For the inspection of the buildings, an engineer- 
architect is attached to the same department. The courts and tribunals 
are also required to cause the prisons to be inspected, from time to 
time, by members assigned to that duty. The reports of all these in¬ 
spections are addressed to the minister. 

The administration of the several prisons is confided to administra¬ 
tive commissions named in each locality where a prison exists. The 
members of these commissions are named by the King from among the 


32 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


notables of the locality, who receive no salary. Whatever appertains 
to the local administration, to the internal service, to the discipline, and 
to the execution of the general and special regulations is confided to 
these commissions or is done through their agency. They are in offi¬ 
cial relation with the minister, either directly or by the deputy of the 
royal commissioner (governor) of the province, their immediate superior 
and their honorary president. 

The directors of the central prisons are appointed by the King, the 
other officers by the minister of justice. There is no defined tenure of 
office. Incumbents hold their offices until they are displaced, dismissed, 
or voluntarily retire from the service. 

§ 9. The department of justice is supreme in the administration of the 
prisons of Norway. This department is charged with the immediate 
administration of the prisons which receive prisoners sentenced to hard 
labor; while, under it, the administration of the inferior or district 
prisons is confided to the prefects. The position and general functions 
of prefects are not stated in the report. Every prison of the higher 
grade has also its local administration, which makes the necessary ar¬ 
rangements with regard to prison discipline, economy, &c.; always, 
however, in conformity to the rules laid down by the department of 
justice, or having its approval and sanction. A director-general of 
prisons is wanting. The special directors and the chaplains of the 
several prisons are appointed by the King; the medical and financial 
officers are named by the department of justice; the teachers receive 
their appointment from the chaplains, and the other functionaries from 
the directors. The members of the local managing boards of the dis¬ 
trict, who generally receive no salary, are named by the King, being 
taken from among the judicial or administrative officers of the district. 
The subordinate officers of this class of prisons are appointed by the 
prefects. Tenure of office is not for a fixed time. 

§ 10. The prisons of Russia are divided into two classes, military and 
civil. The military prisons are under the jurisdiction of the ministers 
of war and of the navy; the civil prisons are attached to the ministry 
of the interior. The latter are further placed under the Imperial Society 
for the Guardianship of Prisons. This society was established in 1819, 
and has for object the introduction of a more humane treatment of 
prisoners. In 1830 it was by law invested with fresh powers and pre¬ 
rogatives. A committee, formed by a central committee sitting at St. 
Petersburg under the presidency of the minister of the interior, is 
established in the capital of each province, with branches in each chief 
town of the several districts. These committees are composed, ex officio , 
of the officers of the state and of volunteer and benevoleut members, 
who have a small salary and certain honorable prerogatives. These 
committees select the governors and direct the economic manage¬ 
ment of the prisons. A considerable sum is granted for this purpose 
to .the committees, who have the right of referring, in a prescribed 
manner, to the minister of the interior under his double office of 
minister and president. This system not only lessens the expenses of 
admin tration, but has led to considerable gifts and the formation of 
a special capital. It must, however, be acknowledged that such a sys¬ 
tem of administration produces a certain amount of carelessness and 
irresponsibility in the exercise of power, and that the principle of phil¬ 
anthropic committees and their participation in the management, of 
prisoners require important modification in Russia. 

Outside of the control of the committees, there was recently estab¬ 
lished, when municipal laws were created iu Russia, a new mode of de- 


PRIS. ADMN.-MEXICO-NETHERLANDS-NORWAY, ETC. 33 

tention, named arrest, not to be confounded with preliminary arrest. 
The punishment of arrest, inflicted by justices of the peace for slight 
violations of the law, cannot exceed three months. The establishment, 
maintenance, and administration of these new local prisons are under 
the control of the municipal institutions of each province. 

The appointment of directors and of members of committees is con¬ 
firmed by imperial decree. The other officers are appointed by the 
minister of the interior. Their tenure of office is not limited. 

§ 11. All the prisons of Sweden are placed under the control and ad¬ 
ministration of a central independent authority, called the general 
administration of prisons. Under this general administration, the pro¬ 
vincial government has the direct inspection of the cellular prisons 
established in each province. The general administration derives its 
authority from the government, to which all reports are made through 
the medium of the minister of justice. 

The directors and officers of all the prisons of the state are named by 
the general administration of prisons. They are appointed for no speci¬ 
fied time, and generally they retain their places as long as they show 
themselves competent to their work. 

§ 12. The Swiss Confederation, composed of twenty-two cantons and 
embracing twenty-five states, does not, by its own power, exercise any 
control over the administration of penal justice and of prisons, or over 
the penitentiary regime. Military and political penal justice, so far as 
it is called upon to punish offenses against the constitution and the fed¬ 
eral laws, alone comes within its jurisdiction. Each canton is sovereign. 
It has its own special penal system and its own places of imprisonment. 
Its prisons are thus placed under the control of the cantonal executive 
authority or of the council of state. 

The supervision of the prisons belongs more especially to one of the 
departments of the executive power. In certain cantons the prisons 
are placed, wholly or partially, under the supervision of the department 
of police, in others under that of the department of justice or of the 
interior, according to the stand point from which the importance of this 
public service is viewed. In the cantons in which recently-constructed 
penitentiaries are found, the whole or a part of the supervision is con¬ 
fided to the director of justice, or to a special department, which gives 
its attention not only to prisons, but also to hospitals, insane-asylums, 
&c. This department associates with itself a commission of super¬ 
vision composed of three to seven members', selected from among per¬ 
sons experienced in questions of penitentiary reform, of industry, and 
of commerce. In the cantons where this machinery exists, an official 
regulation defines the functions of the commission of supervision. The 
detention-prisons in the districts and places of detention for civil penal¬ 
ties are supervised by the agents of the council of state—prefects, coun¬ 
selors of prefecture, &c. 

The officers and employes of the prisons are named by the council of 
state. In the cantons where penitentiaries of recent construction exist, 
the officers are proposed by the department of justice or of police, which 
takes the advice of the commission of supervision. The foremen and 
overseers are appointed by the commission of supervision, on the nomi¬ 
nation of the director of the penitentiary. 

In some cantons the officers are subjected to a re-election every three 
years, in some every four years, and in others the tenure of office is 
without limitation. 

It may be affirmed that, as a general thing, the officers of the Swiss 
penitentiaries are not exposed to the influence of political changes, and 
H. Ex. 185--3 


34 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

that those whose position may have been endangered by the victory of 
a party have been effectually shielded by a public opinion which appre¬ 
ciated their merits and their devotion. 

§13. The General Government of the United States, as was observed in 
the preceding chapter, does not concern itself with prisons. It has not 
a solitary jail or penitentiary under its jurisdiction, but imprisons the 
few criminals convicted under its laws and by its own courts in the 
States where the conviction takes place. Prison-administration, there¬ 
fore, is a thing relegated to the governments of the several States. But 
even in the individual States there is no central authority governing 
all the prisons, although the last ten years have developed a tendency 
to establish such a central bureau in several of the States. Generally, 
the bureau is charged with the inspection of prisons only, and has no 
power to regulate their management or appoint their officers. Such 
bureaus exist, under the name of boards of public charities, in Penn¬ 
sylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri; and similar 
boards in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina take some 
part in prison inspection, or management, or both. In New York the 
State board of charities is expressly excluded from any direction or 
even inspection of the prisons, and the three great prisons of that State 
are placed under the control of another board, known as the inspectors 
of State prisons, while a private society, with public duties, the New 
York Prison Association, of which the undersigned was for many years 
the secretary, is allowed, and indeed required, to inspect all the prisons 
of the State and the counties. Nothing that can properly be called 
u central authority'’'’ over all the prisons of a State is known to exist 
anywhere in the Union ; but wherever there is the nearest approach to 
this, the results are the most satisfactory. Without it, there is, at best, 
a great lack of method and of the highest order of prison discipline; and 
often gross abuses prevail in many of the local prisons. These have 
been revealed, to some extent, in official reports within the past five 
years, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, 
and Wisconsin; and were a searching investigation to be made in other 
States, even those most noted for the excellence of their prison admin¬ 
istration, no doubt such would be revealed in them too. As a rule, each 
city and county manages its own prisons; and where a city or county has 
several prisons, these are very likely to be under distinct officers or 
boards of management, which have little acquaintance with each other 
and little knowledge of the general system of prisons in the State. 

Hence, if wefindin any State a prison exceptionally well managed,like 
the Albany penitentiary, under the management of General Pilsbury, and 
the Detroit house of correction, under that of Mr. Brockway, it by no 
means follows that the other prisons will be good ; and it may happen 
that a spirit of envy or jealousy will prevent the managers of one prison 
from adopting the improved system which has been introduced into 
another. The chief defects of this disorganized condition of prison 
management spring, however, from a mutual ignorance of the condition 
and working of prisons that should co-operate with each other; and 
one great advantage derived from the meeting of the Cincinnati Prison 
Reform Congress was a better acquaintance of prison managers with 
each other, and a wider knowledge gained by them of the prisons of 
their own and other States. 

§ 14. In Great Britain and Ireland the prison system is far from being 
a unit. In neither country is there any such thing as a central and 
supreme authority, possessing jurisdiction overall its prisons. For the 
convict-prisons alone, there is in each a central and controlling 


PRIS. ADMN.-SWITZERLAND-UNITED STATES, ETC. 35 

power, which sits at the helm, and which has within its jurisdiction the 
entire administration of the system. But as regards county and borough 
prisons, both in the larger and smaller island, the government has little 
power beyond that of inspection. Each prison has its own board of vis¬ 
iting justices, supreme within its own domain, but with no bond of union 
between them, and no power capable of giving unity and symmetry to 
the whole circle and system of prisons and their administration. 


CHAPTER III. 

PRISON DISCIPLINE. 

§ 1. The agencies employed in the prisons of Austria as a stimulus to 
obedience and industry are: 1. The possibility of imperial clemency. 
Prisoners cannot shorten their terms of sentence according to any fixed 
rule, that principle not having, as yet, been introduced into the Aus¬ 
trian penitentiary discipline. But, according to an ancient custom, a 
number of prisoners who have undergone the greater part of their sen¬ 
tences, and who have given solid proofs of improvement, are recom¬ 
mended periodically to the Emperor for pardon. 2. A share in their 
earnings. The industrial system is not uniform in the prisons of Austria. 
In some the labor of the prisoners is let to contractors; in others, it is 
utilized on account of the state. In the former class of prisons the 
convicts receive one-half of the proceeds of their work after deducting 
certain expenses, not very clearly explained in the report. In the latter 
class they receive a share, regulated by a fixed tariff, which amounts to 
about the same as that received by prisoners who work on contract. 
What is said above relates to prisons on the associated plan. In the 
partially cellular jirison of Gratz, each prisoner has his daily task. 
Here the progressive system has been introduced; according to the 
measure of his industry and the class to which he belongs, each prisoner 
has placed to his credit daily a sum varying from two to six kreutzers, 
and, at the end of the month, the value of whatever overwork he may 
have done during the month. 

Besides the above-mentioned rewards, the privilege is accorded to the 
prisoners of spending one-half of what stands to their credit (not ex¬ 
ceeding, however, a florin and twenty kreutzers a week) in the purchase of 
additional comforts, as milk, coffee, wheaten bread, cold meats, wine, beer, 
tobacco, &c. ; or they may spend it in support of their families or in 
buying such clothes as they will need on their discharge. These arrange¬ 
ments, the report states, have worked well. 

The most frequent violation of prison-rules are disobedience, rude¬ 
ness to officers or comrades, refusal to work, and negligence in the 
performance of the assigned tasks. 

The disciplinary punishments employed are : Admonition ; coarse and 
unproductive work ; temporary withdrawal of privileges; a bread-and- 
water diet—not given, however, oftener than on three alternate days 
in the week; irons, (only used in extreme cases;) hard bed, (either sack¬ 
ing or bare boards,) but not more frequently than bread and water; im¬ 
prisonment in a cell, with employment, and at least two visits a day 
from an officer, but not exceeding a month, nor to be repeated till a full 
month shall have passed; removal to another part of the prison; and 



36 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


confinement in a dark cell, not exceeding three weeks, after which a 
week must elapse before the prisoner can be returned to it. 

An exact record is made of all punishments inflicted, and they are 
also inserted in a memorandum-book kept by each prisoner. 

§ 2. Prisoners cannot shorten their sentences in Belgium by any fixed 
rule; but this may be done by act of royal clemency in the case of pris¬ 
oners who are thought to deserve it, on the recommendation of the ad¬ 
ministrative boards, or boards of prison inspection. They receive a 
portion of their earnings according to the following tariff: Prisoners 
sentenced to hard labor receive three-tenths, those sentenced to reclu¬ 
sion four-tenths, and those sentenced correctionally five-tenths. This 
proportion cannot be increased. Other rewards, accorded to good con¬ 
duct, to diligence, to zeal and progress in school and labor, and to mer¬ 
itorious actions of whatever kind, are as follows: Admission to places 
of trust, to domestic service, and to certain exceptional labors ; an in¬ 
crease of the privilege of visits and of correspondence; permission to 
make use of tobacco, in the form of snuff or by smoking it at proper 
times; the grant of certain diversions and alleviations, such as the gift 
of books, engravings, tools, useful objects, &c.; propositions of clemency 
and of reduction of punishment. 

The most frequent violations of prison rules are, in the cellular pris¬ 
ons, communications or attempted communications, verbal or written. 
In the congregate prisons they are infractions of the rule of silence and 
traffic. 

The following are the disciplinary punishments in use: Privation of 
work, reading, gratuities, the cantine , visits, correspondence, and other 
indulgences granted in pursuance of the regulations; a diet of bread and 
water; confinement in a special cell, or in a dark cell, with or without 
the bread-and-water diet; the withdrawal of rewards which might other¬ 
wise have been granted. 

All disciplinary punishments are recorded in a special register, to¬ 
gether with the causes for which they were inflicted. The offenses com¬ 
mitted and the punishments administered are also placed in the moral 
account opened with each prisoner. 

§ 3. The report for Denmark states that the discipline is intended to 
be reformatory. For the cellular prison is established a sort of pro¬ 
gressive system. In the associated prisons the inmates occupy sepa¬ 
rate sleeping-cells. The convicts work in divisions separate from each 
other. NTo complete progressive system has as yet been adopted; but 
such a system is in contemplation. The punishments for breach of dis¬ 
cipline are determined bylaw. Corporal punishments are among them. 
The most efficacious means of awakening and preserving hope are, in 
the cellular prisons, the promotion to a higher class; in the associated 
prisons, wages paid for labor. Conditional release does not take 
place. 

§ 4. The principle of abbreviating the sentences of prisoners, as consti¬ 
tuting at once a stimulus and a reward of good conduct, has not yet been 
introduced into the French penitentiary discipline. This can only be 
done through the exercise of the pardoning power. Fixed rules are 
laid down to be followed in applications for clemency, which is generally 
dispensed in concert with the administrative and judicial authorities, 
and may therefore be presumed to be done intelligently and on the 
ground of merit. 

In the central prisons the product of the labor is divided into tenths. 
A portion of these tenths is assigned to the convicts, and takes the 
name of peculium. The quota of tenths granted to the convicts is 


PRIS. DISCIPLINE AUSTRIA BELGIUM—DENMARK, ETC. 37 

determined by the nature of the punishments and the.number of con¬ 
victions incurred. The assignment is adjusted between the three classes 
thus: Correctionals, five-tenths; rechisionaries, four-tenths; those sen¬ 
tenced to hard labor, three-tenths. The part assigned to prisoners 
sentenced on relapse is reduced one tenth for each previous convic¬ 
tion, down to the limit of the last tenth, which is, under all circum¬ 
stances, paid to the convict. The peculium is divided by moieties 
into peculium disposable and peculium reserved. The first is at the 
disposition of the convicts during their imprisonment for certain 
authorized uses, and especially for the purchase of supplementary pro¬ 
visions and supplies, for the relief of their families, and for voluntary 
restitutions. It also furnishes reserves for fines, punishments, breaking 
prison, or damages to the prejudice of the state or the contractor. The 
peculium reserved was established in view of securing to liberated pris¬ 
oners some resources for their first necessities on their discharge from 
the penitentiary. The number of tenths allowed to convicts may be 
increased on account of their good conduct and diligence. There may 
be granted to them, in consideration of these qualities, even six-tenths. 
Other rewards accorded to convicts are: designation for employment 
as foreman of a workshop, monitor in the school, overseer of a dormitory, 
and other positions of trust, such as hospital attendants, store-keepers, 
secretaries, &c.; also a place on the roll of honor. 

The moral offenses most frequently exhibited are theft, assaults, and 
indecencies. As regards the infractions of disciplinary rules, more than 
half the cases in the central prisons consist of violations of the law of 
silence. In most of the penitentiary establishments, next to that just 
named, the most frequent infractions are refusal to work, the secret use 
of tobacco, gambling, trafficking, and the unlawful possession of money. 

Order and discipline are reported as maintained in all establishments 
dependent upon the penitentiary administration, without the necessity 
of a recourse to coercive measures of an excessive severity. Acts of 
rebellion and violence take place to only a limited extent, thanks to the 
vigorous enforcement of the rules intended to insure a strict but 
equitable distribution of disciplinary justice. The punishments, so far 
as the central prisons are concerned, are: Confinement in a cell, with or 
without irons; the hall of discipline; dry bread for three days or more; 
deprivation of the cantine or of the ordinary ration; the reduction of the 
tenths; fines; privation of correspondence and of visits; and sometimes 
the loss of an honorable position, such as that of foreman, overseer of a 
dormitory, monitor in the school, &c. The convict who has incurred dis¬ 
ciplinary punishments cannot be placed on the roll of honor. Corporal 
punishments are expressly forbidden. 

Every day (Sundays and feast-days excepted) the director of a central 
prison, assisted by his assessors, holds a tribunal of disciplinary justice, 
at which are required to appear prisoners reported on the previous 
evening as having committed some infraction. Each case is fully heard 
and fairly considered. It belongs to the director to pronounce judgment, 
and his decisions are immediately inscribed in a register kept for the 
purpose. Minutes are kept of the proceedings of each session. The 
punishments adjudged are inscribed by the schoolmaster on the bulletin 
of the moral statistics of the convict. In the houses of arrest, of justice, 
and of correction, the punishments are inflicted by the director or the 
chief keeper, and are inscribed on a special register, which is subject to 
the inspection of the prefect and the mayor. 

§ 5. The German states report: The principle of provisional libera¬ 
tion has been adopted in the penal code of the German Empire. 


38 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


(1) In Baden actual imprisonment may, by good conduct, be reduced 
one-fourth, provided, however, that a full year shall have been passed 
in confinement. The holder of a license may, at any time before the 
expiration of his sentence, have it revoked for misconduct or an infrac¬ 
tion of its terms, in which case the time intervening between his pro¬ 
visional liberation and his re-arrest is wholly disregarded, and the pris¬ 
oner is required to serve out his entire sentence as if he had not been 
released at all 

Bor the performance by the prisoner of the daily task required, 
which is equal to the average work of a free laborer, the sum of three 
kreutzers is placed to his credit. For additional work this sum may be 
increased to six kreutzers. To this reward diligence and the result of 
efficient work alone contribute, good conduct not being considered. 
Other rewards are special gratuities, the privilege of spending a part 
of their peculium in procuring increased comforts, better prison fare, 
such occupation as they like, and school prizes. 

The offenses most common are forbidden communications with their 
fellow-prisoners. 

The disciplinary punishments in use are: Beprimands; withdrawal of 
privileges; solitary confinement, with or without light ; privation of bed; 
diminution of food and drink; and coercive chair, (the prisoner being 
bound to a solid chair.) A full record is kept of all punishments. 

( 2 ) The same rule in regard to the shortening of prison-sentences by 
good conduct holds in Bavaria as in Baden. 

The proportion of their earnings allotted to prisoners varies from two 
to four kreutzers a day. In this award regard is had to good behavior as 
well as to industry and capability. Other rewards, given to act as an 
incentive to good, are: Permission to buy or receive extra articles of 
consumption; permission to receive more frequent visits and conduct a 
more extensive correspondence ; formal praise or recognition ; receiv¬ 
ing better and more lucrative work; school prizes, (presents of books 5 ) 
rewards for work, (presents of money up to four florins.) 

The prison regulations oftenest violated are those which arise out 
of intercourse with other prisoners, namely: Exchange of articles of 
food and snuff; disobedience and brutality, such as opposition to offi¬ 
cials, attacking fellow-prisoners, refusal to work, swearing, noisiness, 
and quarreling. 

The disciplinary punishments are: Beproof; non-payment for labor up 
to four weeks; reduction of rations for a term of from eight to fourteen 
days ; arrest, with or without work, to a period not exceeding four weeks; 
imprisonment in a dark cell for a term not exceeding ten days; and 
wearing of irons, but in such a manner as not to prevent the prisoner 
from walking. Corporal punishment is strictly forbidden by law. 

Every punishment is entered in a book kept for the purpose ; an ex¬ 
tract from it is added to the documents furnished to each prisoner. 

(3) The same regulation in regard to provisional liberation has place 
in Prussia as in Baden and Bavaria. 

Prisoners may receive a part of their earnings, but never more than 
one-sixth. The exact proportion depends upon their good or bad con¬ 
duct and the greater or less zeal they have shown at their work. They 
may dispose of one-half of this share in increasing their prison com¬ 
forts; the other half is given to them on their release. Beyond the 
sixth of their earnings no other special rewards are granted to pris¬ 
oners. 

The most common infractions of prison rules in Prussia are: 1 . 
Slight offenses against discipline, as neglecting to keep silence, disorder, 


PRISON DISCIPLINE-GERMAN STATES. 


39 


untidiness, and quarreling with, fellow-prisoners. These infractions, 
in 1869, were 57 per cent, of the whole. 2. The violations of regu¬ 
lations are—improper, insolent, and rebellious conduct toward the 
officers. These were, in 1869, 24 percent. 3. Those infractions of rules 
which consist in avoiding and escaping from work. These, in 1869, 
were 19 per cent. 

The disciplinary punishments are : Degradation to the second class of 
prisoners; privation of the right of disposing of any part of their earn¬ 
ings ; privation of the better treatment accorded on holidays ; solitary 
imprisonment in punishment-cells, accompanied by various degrees of 
rigor; and whipping, only inflicted on men, with a limitation to thirty 
lashes. 

An exact register of all punishments is kept. 

(4) Prison discipline in Saxony has a twofold object: the satisfac¬ 
tion of justice and the reformation of the prisoner. Above all things, 
effort is made to revive and cherish hope in the heart of the criminal, 
the hope of improving his condition in the prison, the hope of shorten¬ 
ing the term of imprisonment, the hope of a complete moral amendment, 
and the hope of regaining a respectable place in society. The adminis¬ 
tration thinks that the church, the school, and Sunday’s instructions 
are the best means, in the hands of a sensible officer, for effecting moral 
reformation. It aims at making the prisoner understand that he can 
make progress neither in prison nor in civil life without radical and 
real amendment. The question whether a discipline founded on rewards 
or punishments is the more successful, is deemed almost superfluous, for 
it depends much on the individual character of the prisoner. By an 
order dated March 10, 1864, in consequence of the favorable results of 
experiments made during the previous ten years, disciplinary punishments 
were greatly reduced, and now consist in diminution of food, more or less 
severe imprisonment, and in withdrawing the recompense for work done. 
Corporal punishment with a rod or thin stick, up to thirty strokes, or 
punishment on laths, (the former only used against criminals of the 
lowest class of discipline,) is used under certain restrictions, and can 
only be applied after mature consideration and deliberation on the part 
of the officers. It is seldom used, and has, for example, not been applied 
in the penitentiary of Zwickau for the last ten years. Diligence is re¬ 
warded by a higher allowance, and good conduct places the prisoner in 
a higher class of discipline, or obtains for him a place of trust. A 
remission of part of the imprisonment is regarded by the prisoners as 
the highest reward. The administration makes it the termination of the 
three stages of discipline. The remission of part of the sentence has 
proved excellent in its results, for down to January 1, 1872, of 415 pris¬ 
oners dismissed, only 11, or 2.65 per cent., relapsed. 

(5) Probationary liberations have been introduced into Wiirtemberg 
since the enactment of a penal code for the German Empire. In cases 
where a question of the full pardon of a prisoner arises, his conduct is 
especially taken into consideration. 

Industrious prisoners receive, for their application and good conduct, 
a part of their earnings; this part is fixed by the administration at one- 
fourth ; but if their earnings exceed eight kreutzers per day, they can 
receive only two kreutzers. Prisoners who are distinguished for good 
■conduct are encouraged by being placed in a higher class, by receiving 
more agreeable and more profitable employment, by being allowed more 
frequent communication with their friends and more liberty to make 
purchases out of their earnings, and by being recommended for pardon. 

The chief disciplinary punishments are: restricted communication 


40 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


with their relatives and friends; withdrawal or diminution of the part 
of their earnings usually granted to them ; diminution of food ; isolated 
imprisonment; and imprisonment in a dark cell. In prisons for reclusion, 
rons are also applied; corporal punishment is excluded. An exact 
register of punishments is kept. 

§ 6. The end aimed at in the administration of penitentiary discipline 
in Italy is so to direct punishment that, without allowing it to lose its 
necessary characteristic of deterrence, it shall also possess the other 
equally essential requisite of reforming the delinquent. Nothing there¬ 
fore is omitted to obtain this desirable end. While, on the one hand, it 
is instilled into the mind of the prisoner that he will be enabled, by good 
conduct, to ameliorate his condition ; on the other, the end aimed at is 
to raise his sense of manly dignity, that he may not become a hypocrite. 
In the penitentiaries those who distinguish themselves by their good 
conduct enjoy special advantages, such as being intrusted with domes¬ 
tic work, being recommended to mercy, &c. 

In the bagnios there lias been established a system of progressive 
classification, under which prisoners, like the mercury in a thermometer, 
ascend and descend according to their deserts. Each class has its dis¬ 
tinctive badge and special privileges. Those prisoners who have distin¬ 
guished themselves by good conduct in the penitentiaries, and have 
worked out at least one-half their term, are removed to the agricultural 
colonies of Pianosa and Gorgon a. 

The administration is at present occupied in the study of a plan for 
sending to the island of Capraja (Tuscan Archipelago) those prisoners 
who have continued in their good conduct during their sojourn in the 
islands of Pianosa and Gorgona. The prisoners on reaching Capraja 
will enjoy a semi-liberty within the island, without, however, being quite 
free from certain disciplinary restraints. This is the Crofton intermediate 
prison. 

The disciplinary system in the two classes of prisons noticed below, va¬ 
rying according to the nature of the sentences to be worked out in them, 
differs somewhat. In the penitentiaries the punishments in use are: 
admonitions, privation of food, solidary cells, fetters at the longest for 
twenty-four hours, solitary confinement from one to six months ; while 
in the bagnios, besides admonitions, separate cells, and privation of 
food, there is also arrest, with or without fetters, the hard seat, &c. 

The rewards in the penitentiaries are: the appropriation for the ben¬ 
efit of the prisoner of a quota of the profits arising from his labor; a 
more generous diet; the privilege of a less interrupted family corre¬ 
spondence ; the right of disposing of a portion of the funds accruing from 
his work ; admission into the schools; domestic employment; and rec¬ 
ommendation to mercy. The rewards in the bagnios are: advancement 
from a lower to a higher class; elevation to positions of trust and 
responsibility; exemption from the fetters customarily worn in this 
class of prisons; and for those alone who have reached the highest 
class, recommendations to the royal clemency for a full pardon. 

It is difficult to decide (so the report declares) which class of discip¬ 
linary punishments is most efficacious, the effect depending on many 
individual circumstances, which cannot be known, much less stated, in 
advance. Solitary confinement generally reduces to order and quiet¬ 
ness even the most obstinate, and this because the individual so pun¬ 
ished is withdrawn from the over-excitement produced by the recurrence 
of the spectacle in which he is both actor and witness. Corporal pun¬ 
ishment is forbidden. By the. regulations of 182G, flogging was a 
puuishment assigned to a few grave misdemeanors; but this regulation 


PRISON DISCIPLINE-ITALY-MEXICO-NETHERLANDS. 41 

was modified in 1863, and since then flogging has not been inflicted in 
a solitary case. 

The local director has authority to inflict the minor punishments; for 
heavier ones it is necessary to have the approval of a special council; 
the offending prisoner must be heard, and an official report must be 
drawn up. The more serious cannot be inflicted without notice being 
previously given to the central direction. 

For the protection of the prisoners there exist the following provis¬ 
ions: A visiting commission (especially for the detention jails ;) an au¬ 
thorized direct correspondence between the prisoner, the minister of the 
interior, the director-general, the central inspector, and the magisterial 
authorities; and a systematic inspection of the prisons by the local 
authorities and by the central inspectors. 

No special discipline, it is held, can be applied to incorrigible con¬ 
victs ; but, as they may be kept in solitary confinement for the space of 
six months, they become impotent to disturb the discipline of the estab¬ 
lishment. The central administration, however, fully recognizing the 
many benefits which would accrue from such a plan, proposes to set 
apart a penitentiary, where so stringent a discipline can be exercised as 
to render superfluous any extraordinary coercive measures, and therein 
to gather together that class of convicts which, by subtle art oftener 
than by open rebellion, encourages and prompts discontent among the 
prisoners, and thus foments a perpetual irritation, so obstructive to the 
quietness, confidence, and subordination which are the primary elements 
of a genuine moral rehabilitation. 

§ 7. It is provided in the new criminal code of Mexico that offenders 
sentenced to ordinary imprisonment, or to reclusion, in an establishment 
of penal repression for two years or more, and who have uniformly be¬ 
haved well during a period equal to half the time their confinement is 
to last, have the remaining period of imprisonment remitted condition¬ 
ally. In this way offenders can not only obtain a diminution of their 
punishment, but also receive a free pardon, if they have, by their 
good conduct, shown themselves worthy of it. Any punishment, 
whether of ordinary imprisonment or of reclusion, in an establishment of 
penal repression, for two years or more, is to be converted into close 
confinement, in case the offender should have misbehaved himself dur¬ 
ing the second or third portion of his time. 

All proceeds of the work of the prisoners is given to them if they 
have been condemned for political offenses or if they are detained for 
minor offenses against the law ; but in the case of those condemned, for 
misdemeanor or felony, to imprisonment or reclusion, they have 25 per 
cent, of their earnings, if the punishment lasts more than five years, 
and 28 per cent., if the time is less. To the above percentages 5 per 
cent, more is added when a criminal has obtained, by good conduct, 
his preparatory liberty. Moreover, if he supports himself by his work 
out of the establishment, another 5percent, is added; and this may be 
increased until the allowance reaches 75 per cent, of the total amount. 
The advantage of this system is that prisoners are thus encouraged to 
support themselves by their work, and that they maintain with free 
persons an intercourse which may be useful, when they recover their 
liberty, in enabling them to earn their livelihood without returning to a 
career of crime. 

Besides the favors above enumerated, prisoners can, by their good 
conduct, obtain others. They may enjoy, during the days and hours of 
rest, any amusement which the rules of the establishment iiermits. 
They may apply one-tenth of their reserve-fund to the purchase of any 


42 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


articles of furniture or comfort which the rules do not prohibit. The 
kind of work which their sentence condemns them to perform may be 
commuted into one better suited to their education and habits. 

§ 8. No diminution of the sentences awarded by the tribunals can be 
obtained as matter of legal right by prisoners confined in the jails and 
penitentiaries of the Netherlands. But, agreeably to a royal decree of 
1850, the administrative commissions of the central prisons submit every 
year a proposition for pardons or remissions, to be granted to prisoners 
who have distinguished themselves by their good conduct. These proposi¬ 
tion s, however, include only persons who have been sentenced to more 
than three years, and who have undergone at least one-half of their 
punishment, and the remission never exceeds six months. Besides 
this, all prisoners have the] ordinary resource of applying to the King 
for pardon or remission; and since, in general, a decision is made only 
after a report from the commission on the conduct of the prisoners, this 
conduct has, generally, a strong influence upon the decision. 

The portion of their earnings allotted to the prisoners are: To civil 
prisoners sentenced to reclusion and to military prisoners, 40 per 
cent.; to the inmates of the central prisons, 50 per cent.; and to those 
confined in other prisons, 70 per cent. These proportions are not 
increased by reason of the prisoners’ good conduct. No other rewards 
are given to prisoners beyond this participation in their earnings. The 
distribution of premiums has been abolished for some time, and the 
industry of the prisoners finds its recompense in the increase of profits, 
which naturally result from zeal and capacity. Still, the re-establish¬ 
ment of premiums is under consideration at the present moment. 

The kinds and frequency of the violations of prison rules differ sen¬ 
sibly in different prisons, and often depend on the more or less intelli¬ 
gent administration of the chiefs and the employes. Insubordination 
and quarrels may be regarded as the most frequent infractions. Isola¬ 
tion by night (which is not yet generally introduced) has, in this respect, 
produced good fruits. The disciplinary punishments in use are: Be- 
striction to a diet of bread and water; withdrawal of the privilege of 
writing and receiving letters; privation of books; the dungeon; fetters; 
and, in the central prisons, isolation in a cell. All these punishments 
are recorded in a register. 

§ 9. The principle of provisional liberation, and, by consequence, that 
of the power of shortening the sentence by good conduct, has not 
been introduced into the criminal jurisprudence of Norway. Only by 
royal pardon may the duration of a fixed sentence be abridged; but, in 
deciding on the question of pardon, the behavior of the prisoner during 
his imprisonment is, as a matter of course, taken into consideration. 

Prisoners do not receive any part of the proceeds of their labor. 
Formerly a certain part was allowed them, but the system was aban 
doned as not expedient. However, the question of introducing the 
same system to a greater or less extent, and in an altered manner, has 
again been raised. In regard to other rewards as a stimulus to self- 
control and self-exertion, in the houses of correction and the fortresses, 
an extra allowance of food and other small privileges are accorded to 
the well-behaved and deserving. For those in use in the penitentiary, 
reference is made to what has been said in the chapter on prison- 
systems. 

The most frequent infractions of prison rules are: In the cell-prisons, 
communication with fellow-prisoners; in the other prisons, quarrels, 
illicit labor, attempts to escape, and laziness. Offenses against discip¬ 
line are punished with bread and water, confinement in a dark cell, or 


PRISON DISCIPLINE-NORWAY-RUSSIA-SWEDEN. 43 

with privation of the extra allowance of food; in the prisons exclu¬ 
sive of the penitentiary, corporal imnisliment is also employed. The 
punishments are always inserted on the records. 

§ 10. In Russia the discipline of the prisons seems to be in a lax and 
inchoate state. The principle of an abbreviation of sentence by means 
of good conduct and industry has been admitted onty in imprisonment 
with hard labor, and even there awaits a regular organization and a 
systematic application. Russian law prescribes work for the prisoners, 
and grants them a part of their earnings, according to the particular 
class of prison. But this law still remains almost a dead-letter; it has 
been executed only in rare cases. The organization of industrial labor 
is regarded as lying at the root of the penitentiary improvements now 
under consideration by the government. One of the clauses in the pro¬ 
ject of reform relates to the proportion of earnings granted to the 
prisoners. No system of rewards has yet been established. 

Drunkenness is reported as the most frequent breach of prison rules, 
and as having been often encouraged by the cupidity and want of 
fidelity of the employes. 

The disciplinary punishments employed are the dungeon and some¬ 
times castigation or irons. In the better-regulated prisons a record of 
the punishments is kept. 

§ 11. Good conduct produces no abridgment of the time of imprison¬ 
ment in Sweden. The King exercises the right of pardon almost ex¬ 
clusively in favor of prisoners sentenced to hard labor for life, and whose 
conduct for ten years has been unexceptionable. 

Prisoners are encouraged by being allowed a share in the gain de¬ 
rived from their labor. In the associated prisons the amount received 
daily varies from one to seven cents of our money. This refers to the 
generality of prisoners ; but those who act as foremen, as well as those 
who are distinguished for skill, get an additional sum rising sometimes 
as high as sixty centimes, equal to twelve cents. 

In the cellular prisons in the provinces, in which the director procures 
both work and materials, the earnings of the prisoners sentenced to hard 
labor are distributed on the following scale: The prisoner receives two- 
sixths ; the director for inspection and furniture two-sixths; the officers 
who exercise surveillance, one sixth; and, in order to provide help for the 
prisoner when liberated, the remaining sixth is put in a savings-box. 
Any prisoner who commits in prison an offense liable to punishment 
loses his share of the money placed in the savings-box. Of the two- 
sixths which the prisoner receives he may spend two-thirds in buying 
additional food, as bread, beer, cheese, lard, &c; but this expenditure 
must not exceed two francs per week. Those who work in the open air 
especially require this extra food. There are no other rewards to stimu¬ 
late the prisoners 7 zeal. 

In cellular prisons the most usual offenses are attempts to communi¬ 
cate with other prisoners, drawing and writing on the walls, and neglect 
of cleanliness. In the collective prisons the most frequent violations of 
regulations are insults in words and actions to officers and prisoners, 
attempts to procure spirits, cheating, and thefts. 

In cellular prisons the punishments consist of withdrawal of bed¬ 
clothes, diminution of nourishment, or imprisonment in a dark cell for 
eight hours at most. This punishment is inflicted, on request, by the 
provincial government. In the associated prisons, besides the punish¬ 
ments just cited, there are added imprisonment, with or without labor, 
and for very grave offenses tbe bastinado on men; this last in rare 


44 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


cases. Imprisonment in a cell for a period exceeding a month can only 
be by the central authority. An exact record is kept of all punish ments. 

§ 12. In all the cantons of Switzerland prisoners may, by their good 
conduct, obtain an abbreviation of their punishment by applying for 
pardon to the legislative authority, (great council,) which reserves to itself 
this right. Such reduction is rarely made conformably to fixed rules. 
In many of the cantons complaint is made that chance and caprice play 
too conspicuous a part, and that commissions of pardon do not always 
take account of grave and important facts. In some cantons clemency 
is exercised readily enough, while in others this is done only in excep¬ 
tional cases. 

In certain cantons a decree of the legislative authority confides to the 
council of state, or to the department of justice, or even to the police, 
the right of remitting the latter portion of their punishment (one-twelfth, 
for example) to convicts whose conduct has been good. In cantons 
where penitentiary reform has made some progress, there is a tendency 
to bring down the use of pardons to the minimum, and to substitute 
the principle of conditional liberation ; in short, to confide this function 
to the direction of the department of prisons, which, having the super¬ 
vision of the penitentiary administration, is alone capable of judging 
whether or not the re-entrance of a prisoner into society offers any danger, 
and whether a probationary liberation may be safely granted him. 

In most of the cantons the prisoners have a share in the benefits of 
their labor. As a general thing this part has rather the character 
of a gratuity than that of lawful wages. The proportion varies in 
different prisons, and in the case of prisoners in different classes of 
the same prison, from 5 to 25 per cent. It is proposed by some of 
the wisest directors, Mr. Kiihne, for example, of the penitentiary of 
St. Gall, to increase the proportion beyond 25 per cent, to the worthiest 
of the prisoners. Whatever may be the scale adopted in the different 
establishments, the gratuity is granted to all the prisoners who, con¬ 
formably to the regulations, have rendered themselves worthy of it. It 
is adjusted at the end of every month or every three months, and is 
placed to their credit in their memorandum of savings. 

The other rewards employed to stimulate the good conduct and zeal 
of the prisoners vary in kind and amount, according to the cantons and 
the degree, more or less advanced, of penitentiary reform. In well- 
administered establishments there are granted to good conduct, to 
application, to zeal, and progress in labor and school the following 
rewards: In the second penitentiary class, liberty to choose books from 
the library and to attend the lessons given in class, the use of tobacco— 
limited, however, to the hours of promenade in the exercise-yard—and 
liberty to have served to them a supplementary or extraordinary ration 
of food. In the third or higher class there are added to the above- 
mentioned rewards the privilege of promenade and free conversation 
with their fellow-prisoners of the same class, liberty to wear their beard, 
to work in their free hours for themselves and their families, to adorn 
their cells and to have plants in them, the use of a patch of land for a 
garden, and admission to places of trust—such as that of foreman—to 
superintend their fellow-prisoners in learning trades, or to execute 
certain exceptional labors in the administrative, industrial, and domestic 
services. 

In the cantons where the old convict-prisons still exist, the most fre¬ 
quent offenses against discipline are disobedience and insubordination ; 
next come escapes or attempts to escape; then lies; and finally immo¬ 
rality in acts and words. In the penitentiaries in which the Auburn 


PRISON DISCIPLINE-SWITZERLAND-UNITED STATES. 45 

system lias been introduced it is found that the infractions most fre¬ 
quent are disorder, want of cleanliness, and violation of the law of 
silence; in the penitentiaries of recent construction, the want of pro¬ 
priety and dignity, lying, idleness, and disobedience. 

The disciplinary punishments in use may be divided into three classes: 
In the prisons whose organization is imperfect, and where the reforma¬ 
tion of the prisoners is not the aim of the imprisonment, we find exist¬ 
ing the dungeon and corporal punishments ; in penitentiaries on the 
Auburn system, more or less completely organized, corporal punish¬ 
ments are gradually disappearing, and are replaced by a diet of bread 
and water and by confinement in the dark or ordinary cell; in the 
modern establishments there is coming into vogue a new series of pun¬ 
ishments, of a moral order, among which figure, by the side of the 
dungeon and the diet of bread and water, admonition, privation of 
work, of reading, of visits, of correspondence, and, in general, of all or 
a part of the diversions, alleviations, and other indulgences, above men¬ 
tioned. Corporal chastisements are passing away, and in their place 
are substituted the strait-jacket and the cold-douche bath. 

Those who, through mischief or negligence, destroy or injure the 
effects, objects, instruments, and raw material placed at their disposal, 
are obliged to pay the value of the damage done. 

In most of the prisons are found registers in which the punishments 
inflicted are fully recorded. These registers, in the modern peniten¬ 
tiaries especially, give complete information as to the occasion, the kind, 
and the nature of the punishments inflicted. 

§ 13. There are, perhaps, in the United States a thousand prisons large 
enough to have the word u discipline v applied to their management; 
and in these every variety of discipline, lack of discipline, and abuse of 
discipline are found. In many, little is sought beyond the security of the 
prisoner and the convenience of the prison-keeper; in many others, 
the discipline is intended mainly to be deterrent, but through laxity or 
severity becomes a stimulus to crime; in some, it is really deterrent 
without being reformatory in aim or result; in a great many, the nominal 
aim is reformation, but the reasonable means thereto are neglected ; in 
a few, the wise combination of deterrent and reformatory means is at¬ 
tempted, and succeeds in one direction, or in both, according to the 
skill, opportunity, and perseverance of the prison government. But the 
great majority of prisons in the United States are, in fact, neither deter¬ 
rent nor reformatory to any great extent; sometimes because no effort 
is made to comply with the laws—which almost everywhere require in 
terms this twofold discipline, though they do not often furnish suitable 
means—and sometimes because the best agencies are not employed, or 
are not continued persistently. The deterrent agencies are solitude, 
silence, hard fare, and constant labor; sometimes also severe punish¬ 
ments are employed. The reformatory agencies are instruction—secular 
and religious—industrial training, the encouragement of shortened sen¬ 
tences for good conduct, &c. By some of these means u it is sought to 
plant hope in tlie breast of the prisoner and keep it there f and to these 
are added gratuities for work, the visits of philanthropic persons and 
of the prisoner’s own family, and the promise of help in leading an honest 
life upon his discharge. Conditional pardon, which enters so largely 
into the Crofton prison system, has little place in ours, the commutation- 
laws, by which sentences are shortened for good behavior, being almost 
the only feature of the Crofton system much in use here, and that not 
very systematically. 

Probably punishments are more relied on than rewards in governing 


46 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the prisons; hut there is not much variety of either in most of them. 
Flogging is forbidden by law or usage in most of the States, but is 
practised in some prisons where it is forbidden. The same is true of the 
iron yoke, the shower-bath, the iron crown, suspension by the thumbs, 
and other modes of torture. Deprivation of privileges, solitary im¬ 
prisonment—often in a dark cell—and wearing a ball and chain, are the 
most common punishments. Of rewards, the chief is a shortening of 
the sentence for good behavior 5 this, in truth, is about all there is that 
exerts much effect. The other rewards are petty privileges, such as 
better food, the use of tobacco, a light in the cell, &c. There is no 
exact mark system, so far as is known to the undersigned, in any Ameri¬ 
can prison, but there may be examples not yet made public. 

§ 14. The principle of conditional release, or the power of abbreviat¬ 
ing the term of sentence, is fully introduced into the English convict- 
prisons. The maximum of abbreviation is one-fourth of that part of 
the sentence passed in the public works or congregate prison, no ac¬ 
count being made of the time spent in cellular separation. This remis¬ 
sion is gained by industry alone, which is measured by marks, a certain 
number of which are accorded daily to the prisoner, according to his dili¬ 
gence. The diligence and zeal of the convict are further stimulated by a 
system of progressive classification, whereby he may pass through four- 
classes during his term of sentence, viz, a probation, first, second, and 
third class; and certain selected prisoners are also placed, during the 
last year of their sentence, in a special class. The minimum stay of the 
convicts in each of the three lower classes is one year, and the remainder 
of the sentence may be passed in the first class, unless a prisoner is 
promoted during his last year into the special class. Every promotion 
is followed by certain privileges, and each class wears its own badge. 
Though limited, these privileges offer inducements which are keenly 
felt. They are, in addition to remission of sentence, more frequent com¬ 
munication by visit or letter with their friends, greater freedom for ex¬ 
ercise on Sundays, and increased gratuities to be paid them on their 
release. 

The disciplinary punishments in use are forfeiture of remission, 
degradation to a lower class, the loss of privileges gained by industry, 
solitary confinement, reduction of diet, corporal punishment, and so on. 

The power of punishing a prisoner resides only in the governor and in 
the director. 

The limits of punishment in both cases are laid down by the secretary 
of state, and no punishment can be awarded without full investigation 
of the charge conducted in the presence of the prisoners. The governor 
has powers sufficient to deal with minor offenses, and every punish¬ 
ment he orders is reported to the director with a statement of the pris¬ 
oner’s offense. 

The director, whose functions correspond with those of a magistrate, 
awards punishments for offenses of a grave character. Only the director 
has power to award corporal punishment, and he only for certain offenses 
defined by the secretary of state, and after full inquiry on oath conducted 
in the most formal manner. No unusual punishments may be inflicted. 
Chains, handcuffs, or means of special restraint may not be made use 
of except under certain defined circumstances and under strict regula¬ 
tions, and the use of them is always reported and recorded in a formal 
manner. No officer is allowed to strike or abuse * a prisoner. Should 
he find it necessary, on account of the violence of any prisoner, to make 
use of his weapons, he is always called upon to show that he confined 


PRISON DISCIPLINE-ENGLAND-IRELAND. 47 

himself strictly to the necessities of the occasion, or, failing to do so, 
he must bear the consequences. 

Every prisoner has the unrestricted right of appeal against the acts 
of those above him ; he may lay his complaint in the first instance be¬ 
fore the governor, who is bound to investigate it and to place the ap¬ 
peal on record ; or he may appeal to the higher authority of the director, 
who can, if he sees fit, reverse the decision of the governor. 

The director not coming in daily contact with the officers and pris¬ 
oners, but only visiting the prison magisterially at uncertain intervals, 
it is of course felt that he can give a fresh and impartial consideration 
to any question or complaint. 

Besides this the prisoners have the power of petitioning the secretary 
of state. They exercise freely their right of appeal and petition 5 and 
the effect of these provisions is not only that prisoners feel that they 
cannot be unfairly dealt with, but the officers are constantly reminded 
that they are liable to have to answer for any act which they may per¬ 
form. 

The plan by which it is sought to bring before the prisoner, in a form 
easily intelligible to him, the fact that, as in ordinary life, the advan¬ 
tages held out to him as an encouragement to industry are directly pro¬ 
portioned to his industry; that he cannot be idle for a day without a 
corresponding loss; that good conduct is necessary as well as industry, 
because ill-conduct will deprive him of the advantages he would gain 
by his industry—is, as has already been remarked, by a system of re¬ 
cording the industry by marks. 

To every man is assigned the task of earning a number of marks pro¬ 
portioned to the length of his sentence. These marks may be earned 
either at the lowest rate, in which case he must serve out the whole of 
his sentence; or at the highest rate, when he gets about one-fourth of 
it remitted; or at some intermediate rate, by which he earns a propor¬ 
tionate remission. 

The record by marks applies not only to the amount of remission 
which the prisoner can gain from his sentence, but also to every step 
of progress made during his imprisonment: for instance, he is re¬ 
quired to pass at least a year in each class; but during that time he 
must earn a definite number of marks, or his promotion is delayed; 
and, further, tbe gratuity which he earns in each class is calculated 
according to the number of marks he earns. 

Every prisoner is funished with a card, on which, periodically, his 
earnings in marks are recorded ; and if he feels himself unfairly dealt 
with, he has free right to complain, and his grievances are investigated. 

In this manner, day by day, week by week, and year by year, he can 
count and record the progress he is making as regards promotion from 
class to class as well as in relation to the accumulation of money- 
credits, and the goal of all his endeavors—conditional liberation. He 
is thus made to see and feel that he has something to hope and work 
for beyond the mere avoidance of punishment. 

§ 15. In Ireland, discipline is maintained chiefly by moral forces, viz, 
by rewards in the form of promotions from class to class, increased 
freedom and privileges—as merited by good conduct—gratuities, remis¬ 
sion of part of sentence, &c., and by punishments, taking the shape of 
degradation from a higher to a lower class, reduction of food, and the 
like. Whipping is legal, but seldom employed. 

All punishments are made matter of record. 

The most common offenses are insolence, inattention, and unnecessary 
talk. 


48 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS AGENCIES. 

§ 1. In the Austrian prisons of all kinds, chaplains and religious 
teachers are provided for prisoners of every sect, of which the number 
is considerable. As, however, the greater number are of the Roman 
Catholic faith, every prison has a Roman Catholic chaplain, and, when 
the number of prisoners is sufficient to require so many, two or more. 
Besides holding divine service and administering the sacraments, the 
chaplains are under obligation to visit the prisoners individually, to 
seek to awaken the moral sense within them, to strengthen them by 
spiritual counsel and exhortation on their leaving the prison, and, in 
general, to labor, in season and out of season and by all suitable means, 
to reclaim and save them. 

The highest importance is attached to the labors of the chaplains, 
since religious instruction is found the most effective means to acquaint 
them with the principles of morality and to lift them up from their 
moral degradation. Many prisoners have lost heart and have fallen 
into despondency and even despair, from which they find it impossible 
to raise themselves by their own unaided exertion. As a consequence, 
they have become callous and indifferent. Religion alone is capable of 
reconciling them to themselves, to society, and to God. It alone can 
restore hope to the criminal, the loss of which has been the chief cause 
of his continuance in a course of crime. Religious influences are, there¬ 
fore, an essential agency in the moral improvement of prisoners. 

Formerly volunteer visitors were excluded from the prisons. The law 
of April, 1872, permits the visitation of cell-prisons by members of 
societies which occupy themselves with the care and improvement of 
discharged prisoners. 

There are no Sunday-schools in the Austrian prisons, in the Ameri¬ 
can sense of that institution; but, on Sundays and all church-festival 
days, lectures are delivered to the prisoners on various subjects of 
scientific and popular interest. 

The frequency with which letters may be written by the inmates of 
the Austrian prisons is not stated. They write and receive letters by 
leave of the director, who must in all cases read and countersign them. 
The correspondence of prisoners with their friends is found to have an 
excellent effect upon them, keeping up family ties and counteracting 
the evil influences of prison-life. 

Prisoners, with the consent of the director, may, from time to time, 
receive the visits of their families and friends, provided these latter are 
of good repute, and otherwise unobjectionable. Visits take place in the 
conversation-room, except in the case of sick prisoners, and in the pres¬ 
ence of an official. They cannot last beyond a half-hour, must be iu a 
language understood by the official present, and must relate to matters 
approved by him. Their moral effect is generally favorable, as in the 
case of correspondence. 

§ 2. The Belgian government attaches the highest importance to re¬ 
ligious instruction as a means of reformation, and has given to it the 
most complete organization possible. Chaplains are provided in all 
prisons and for all religions, and the rules require them to preside at the 
exercises of worship and over all religious instruction, to visit the 
prisoners in their cells and give them counsel and cousolatious; to 
press upon their conscience the diligent performance of all religious and 


MORAL AGENCIES-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM-DENMARK, ETC. 49 

moral duties, to direct tlieir reading, to hear their confessions, to give 
special instructions to those ignorant of the essential truths of religion, 
in a word, to fulfill toward them all the duties of their ministry. 

Prisoners sentenced to correctional imprisonment are permitted to 
write letters every fortuight, those sentenced to reclusion once a month, 
and those sentenced to hard labor (travaux forces) once every two 
months. The privilege is granted oftener in urgent cases. The effect 
is evidently good. It maintains or renews the ties of home and kin¬ 
dred, and aids the officers in the study of the prisoner’s character. 

Prisoners are allowed to receive the visits of their relatives—father, 
mother, husband, wife, children, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts—and 
guardians, on the production of a certificate granted by the local 
authority of the places where they reside, authenticating their identity. 
No other visits are permitted except upon a written order of the supe¬ 
rior administration, of the governor of the province, or of the president 
or one of the members of the commission specially delegated to this 
effect. In the penal prisons more particularly, these visits take place 
iu the conversation-rooms, in presence of a keeper. This officer observes 
the persons of the prisoner and the visitor, without interfering with 
the privacy of the interview. The moral influence of these visits is gen¬ 
erally good. The cases are rare (but such have occurred) in which the 
effect has been unfavorable. 

§ 3. In Denmark a clergyman is appointed to each prison. He alone 
is intrusted with the religious teaching of the prisoners. Volunteer 
visitors are not permitted to labor in the prisons for the moral improve¬ 
ment of the inmates. 

§ 4. In the smaller departmental prisons of France some parish priest 
acts as chaplain, but in the larger prisons of this class, as well as in all 
central prisons, the chaplain is a regular officer of the establishment, 
and is wholly devoted to its religious service. Liberty of conscience is 
guaranteed to prisoners of all religions. On his entrance, every prisoner 
must .declare to what faith he adheres, which declaration is verified by 
an administrative information. If he does not belong to the Roman 
Catholic religion, he is transferred, whenever it is possible, to a prison 
designed to receive persons of the same religious faith with himself. 

In the large penitentiary establishments, the chaplains consult with 
the directors iu determining upon the various religious offices and serv¬ 
ices. They visit the infirmaries, the sick, the places of punishment, 
and the solitary cells. In the sessions of the tribunals at the pretorium 
of disciplinary justice, they are entitled to a place among the assessors 
of the director. To prisoners who are prevented, by their age or infirmi¬ 
ties, from taking part in the labors of the evening, they give moral, 
religious, or instructive readings. They are called upon to give their 
advice on propositions for the exercise of executive clemency. 

No volunteer visitor is admitted into the prisons to labor for the 
moral regeneration of the prisoners without a special authorization 
from the minister of the interior; but there exist, for the departmental 
prisons, commissions of supervision, ( surveillance ,) composed of men held 
in the highest esteem, whose mission is to watch over the entire man¬ 
agement, and particularly over everything relating to the reformation 
of the prisoners. Commissions of this sort have not, hitherto, per¬ 
formed any services in the central prisons. 

No Sunday-school, properly so called, exists in the French prisons. 
Yet, with a view to avert the dangers of protracted idleness, the heads 
of a number of penitentiary establishments have organized an hour ot 

H. Ex. 185-4 



50 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

school on Sunday, and the administration has generalized this innova¬ 
tion. 

In the departmental prisons a special regulation of the administra¬ 
tion determines the days and hours on which attention must be given 
to correspondence. In the central prisons, the prisoner has the privi¬ 
lege of writing once a month to his family. He can correspond only 
with his nearer relatives or his guardian. The director is charged with 
the duty of examining the correspondence of the prisoners both ways. 

Beyond cases of special authorization, convicts can receive only the 
visits of father, mother, wife, husband, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and 
guardian. During the visit, which does not ordinarily exceed twenty 
to twenty-five minutes, an officer is always present. 

The moral effect of the visits received, as of the correspondence car¬ 
ried on, by the prisoners, is, in general, rather good than bad. 

§ 5. The German states reported: 

(1) The highest value is attached in Baden to religious instruction in 
prisons. Chaplains are provided for all prisons and for all religions. 
They hold religious service, give religious lessons, enter into religious 
conversation with the prisoners, inspect the prison schools, keep an 
eye on the prisoners’ occupations during their relaxation, and corre¬ 
spond with the ministers of their abode; this correspondence gives moral 
protection to the prisoners after their liberation. It is their duty to 
give particular attention to sick prisoners, to those depressed in spirit, 
or showing any tendency to insanity. They visit the sick weekly, and 
the other prisoners at least every fortnight. It is their duty at these 
visits to awaken, so far as possible, moral and religious feeling in the 
prisoners, and to further their reformation. 

No volunteer visiters are admitted into the prisons to labor for the 
moral benefit of the inmates. 

There are no Sunday-schools in the prisons of Baden. 

Prisoners have liberty to write to their friends once a month ; but cor¬ 
respondence with inspectors, the minister of justice, and the superior 
courts is unrestricted. Their correspondence has generally a beneficial 
influence on the prisoners, none being allowed which can in any way 
interfere with the punishment. All letters sent or received are read 
by the director or the chaplain. 

Visits may be received, of right, monthly, and oftener, as in the case 
of correspondence, by special leave of the director. They take place in 
the presence of an officer, the visitor and prisoner remaining separated. 
Their influence is found to be, in the main, beneficial. 

(2) In Bavaria, all the larger prisons have chaplains wholly devoted 
to the duties of their office; in the district and police prisons^ the cler¬ 
gyman of the place officiates. The regular chaplain is bound to hold 
divine service in the forenoon of every Sunday and holiday and on the 
King’s birthday, and in the afternoon of Sunday to give one hour’s read¬ 
ing or exhortation, and to hold a religious service on one week-day; 
to administer the sacrament to sick prisoners when they demand it, 
and to those in health once every three months; to give religious in¬ 
struction twice a week for one hour; to visit the prisoners confined in 
cells at least every fortnight; to correspond with the clergymen of the 
places to which the prisoners belong; and to act as librarian. 

Volunteer religious workers are not admitted. 

There are no Sunday-schools in the prisons, but on that day instruc¬ 
tion in drawing is given to the prisoners. 

There appear to be no stated periods for writing letters; the only con¬ 
dition would seem to be permission by the director. All letters, "going 


MORAL AGENCIES BADEN BAVARIA PRUSSIA—SAXONY. 51 

out or coming in, are examined by the director. Their correspondence 
has a beneficial effect on the prisoners. If the ties of family have been 
broken, they are thereby re-knit; if otherwise, they are made stronger. 

Prisoners may receive visits at any time by leave of the director. 
The visits are not to last usually beyond fifteen minutes; they must be 
in the presence of an officer, and must be carried on audibly, and in a 
language understood by him. The visitor may neither give nor receive 
anything from the prisoner. 

The influence of these visits upon the prisoners, like that of their cor¬ 
respondence, is found to be useful rather than injurious. 

(3) Chaplains are found in all the prisons of Prussia, and for all forms 
of worship. They hold divine service every Sunday and once during 
the week ; administer the sacrament to the prisoners at stated periods; 
give religious instruction; superintend the primary instruction given by 
the schoolmasters; are bound to labor seriously for the salvation of the 
souls of the prisoners; and, with this aim, must visit them regularly in 
their cells and in the infirmary. 

In all instruction given to adult prisoners, the aim is not so much to 
impart new knowledge, either useful or necessary, as to teach them to 
reflect, and to liberate them from that sad brutishness which is so often 
the chief cause of their crimes. The less instruction is an exercise of 
mere memory, and the less it demands a mere mechanical activity, the 
more it engages the attention of the entire man, and the more it acts at 
once on heart and intellect ; and to that extent it the more efficaciously 
fulfils its highest purpose. 

It is held in Prussia that the unchangiug truths of religion and 
morality, when taught in a worthy and striking manner, best fulfil the 
highest aims of instruction and are richest in satisfactory results. Such 
instruction in prisons is, therefore, regarded as one of the most important 
means for the moral reformation of the prisoners. 

Private persons who are known to have great interest in all that con¬ 
cerns prisons, and who possess a high moral character, may, at their 
request, have admission into the prison, with a view to labor for the 
moral and spiritual well-being of the prisoners. 

There are many Sunday-schools in the prisons of Prussia, but neither 
the manner of conducting them nor their results are stated. 

Prisoners must have special permission from the director before they 
can either write or receive letters; but such permission is withheld only 
in exceptional cases. All letters are read by the administration. The 
chaplain generally delivers the letters addressed to the prisoners; he takes 
this occasion for acquiring a knowledge of their relations and their affairs, 
and seizes any opportunity he may thus have of inducing them to seek 
eternal life. Such correspondence with their friends and relatives as is 
permitted has, in general, a beneficial effect on the prisoners. 

Visits to prisoners are only exceptionally allowed, and when the vis¬ 
itor’s character is above suspicion. They are made in a room appropri¬ 
ated to the purpose and in the presence of an official charged with listen¬ 
ing to the conversation. Their general moral effect is good, and both 
visits and correspondence are regarded as an efficacious remedy for the 
despair and wretchedness which so readily take possession of prisoners. 

(4) In Saxony, the religious wants of prisoners are equally regarded 
and cared for, whatever their creed may be. Just as in every truly re¬ 
ligious household all the members must mutually help to attain what 
is desired, so in the Saxon prisons (it is claimed) everything is arranged 
for the purpose of promoting, above all, moral education by common 
worship of God and individual care of the soul. But the use of extra- 


52 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


ordinary moral agencies is not allowed. It is alleged that they have been 
found unpractical, and that prisoners place little confidence in strangers. 
Consequently casual visitors are not admitted, even though their pur¬ 
pose be the moral improvement of the prisoners. 

(5) In all the prisons of Wiirtemberg there are Protestant and Catho¬ 
lic chaplains. Their duties are to hold divine service on Sundays and 
festival-days, and to give once a week religious instruction to the prisoners 
of their respective creeds and general pastoral counsel on all suitable 
occasions. For prisoners of the Jewish faith there is similar provision 
for religious instruction. The labors of the chaplains are declared to 
be most valuable and beneficial in their results. 

Permission is not given to volunteer laborers to enter the prisons on 
missions of benevolence to the prisoners. 

Prisoners are allowed, under certain restrictions, to receive visits 
from their friends and to correspond with them. The regulations and 
results are much the same as in the other German prisons mentioned in 
this section. 

§ 6. Under the head of moral and religious agencies , the supreme 
director of prisons in Italy, in his report submitted to the congress, 
holds the following language: 

No one will deny that religion has an immense influence over man ; hut to exercise 
that influence it is necessary that religion should be sincere and implanted in the 
heart, and it is in no wise to be confounded with superstition or prejudice. There is 
no doubt, therefore, that, with those prisoners who have that innate religious senti¬ 
ment, practical acts of piety and the exhortations of the chaplains have weight; but 
with the remainder, though it be well that the ministers of religion should do all in 
their power to implant religious feeling, and though the administration neglects noth¬ 
ing which seems conducive to this end, yet it does not consider moral agencies of miuor 
importance, and the greatest of these is the good example to be set before the delin¬ 
quents by the behavior of the directing officers and jailors. 

In some provinces voluntary or semi-official visitors were formerly 
admitted into the prisons, and the government still allows such; but 
the administration does not deem it expedient to pass an opinion as to 
their practical usefulness so long as the commission for penitentiary 
reform is still deliberating on this important question. 

§ 7. All the prisons of Mexico do not have chaplains, nor, when they have 
such, do they also have them for all denominations. Even where chap¬ 
lains are appointed, thej’’ have no well-defined official duties to perform, 
except so far as their ecclesiastical functions are concerned, and their 
duty of course is always to advise and comfort the prisoner and direct 
him toward reformation. Eeligion is believed to be the most valuable 
means of reforming the prisoner. On the days and during the hours 
allowed by the rules, the doors of the prison are open not only to the 
members of the protective boards, but also to all persons who, according 
to the judgment of the council of vigilance, {junta de vigilancia ,) are 
capable of contributing to the moral improvement of the prisoners. 
Sunday-schools exist in some prisons, in others not. The favor of 
writing and receiving letters is generally limited. The results of this 
correspondence are not very satisfactory. 

Formerly prisoners could be visited by all their friends; now only 
those persons are admitted who have leave of the council of vigilance, 
when they are believed by the members of that body capable of im¬ 
proving the moral condition of the prisoners by their advice and theiY 
example. In that case there is thought to be no necessity to employ 
any one to listen to the conversations. 

§ 8. There are no chaplains, as such, attached exclusively to any of 
the prisons of the Netherlands ) but, in all the central prisons, in all the 


MORAL AGENCIES-WURTEMBERG—ITALY-MEXICO, ETC. 53 

houses of detention, and in the greater part of the houses of arrest, the 
office of chaplain and the religious services are confided to one of the 
parish ministers of each religion, who is named by the minister of 
justice. The duties of the chaplain consist in performing religious 
service on Sundays and feast-days, in making pastoral visits, and in 
imparting religious instruction. Religious instruction, given with in¬ 
telligence, is considered of great importance as an agency in the refor¬ 
mation of prisoners. In some prisons there has been introduced the 
system of proverbs. This consists in hanging on the walls of the corri¬ 
dors and cells pithy moral sentences, and in changing them from time 
to time. In the opinion of experienced persons, this plan deserves to 
be recommended for general use. 

Persons of both sexes, outside of thp administration, are admitted 
into the prisons to labor among the prisoners, with a view to their moral 
regeneration. In some cities there are private associations to visit the 
prisoners, organized by the National Society for the Moral Amelioration 
of Prisoners. 

Sunday-schools'have not been established in the prisons of the Neth¬ 
erlands. 

The administration of each prison regulates the correspondence of 
the prisoners as it judges most expedient. There is no general rule upon 
the subject. All the letters received or written by the prisoners are 
subjected to the inspection of the directors, and are withheld when 
their contents are improper. There is, therefore, no ground to appre¬ 
hend injurious effects, and, in general, the correspondence of the pris¬ 
oners is attended with a beneficial influence. 

The prisoners are permitted to receive the visits of their friends as 
often, generally, as once a month. A grating separates the prisoner 
from his visitor, and an employe is always present to supervise the 
interview, which, as a general thing, may not exceed a quarter of an 
hour. They cannot converse privately. As in the case of the corre¬ 
spondence, it may be said that the general effect of these visits is good. 

§ 9. Every convict-prison in Norway has its chaplain of the Evan¬ 
gelical Lutheran confession, to which faith almost all the people of 
Norway belong. In the minor district prisons, spiritual assistance is 
generally afforded by the parish minister of the district where the prison 
is situated. To the chaplains it belongs to conduct divine service in 
the prisons and to labor for the reformation of their inmates by the 
further agencies of personal conversation, admonition, and instruction. 

Religious lessons are regarded in Norway as a very effective agent in 
the reformation of imprisoned criminals. 

Sunday-schools exist in most of the convict or hard-labor prisons, 
but persons outside of the administration are not admitted for moral 
labor within the prisons. 

Correspondence and visits are permitted to the prisoners under due 
restrictions, and the moral effect in both cases is found to be good. 

§ 10. In all the large prisons of Russia there are chapels and chap¬ 
lains. Prisoners of all the different creeds receive the offices of religion 
from ministers of their own faith, even Jews and Mussulmans. 

The report on the prisons of Russia, as already stated in a previous 
‘chapter, was drawn up by Count Sollohub, president of the imperial 
commission on prison reform for that empire. On the subject of relig¬ 
ious instruction in prisons the distinguished count holds this language : 

In the present condition of things, the duties of the chaplains rest rather on the per¬ 
formance of religious ceremonies than on the giving of formal instruction. Viewed in 
its relation to the actual state of things in the country, I lind no disadvantages in this 


54 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


arrangement. Ceremonies speak to tlie eye ancl the heart. Religions instruction re¬ 
quires in the priests who undertake it the largest charity and a high ci vilization. 1 lie 
aggressive principle of the gospel, when disconnected troui material interests, is cer¬ 
tainly the crown of the servant of God, hut this work would require a special cleigy 
trained for the purpose of this particular mission. In addition to the education ot 
those who speak, those who hear must likewise be educated, that they may unclei- 
stand as well as listen. It is impossible to deny the importance of religions worship 
and instruction, but I think in all things excess is pernicious. A man in more favor¬ 
able conditions than a prisoner would immediately lose patience it lie had to listen 
only to exhortations to virtue and repentance. The prisoner, having no means of 
resistance, buries in his heart a hatred which makes repentance impossible, or assumes 
a hypocritical garb of piety, iu the hope of gaining something by it. I think I am not 
mistaken in affirming that the desire to reform prisoners has often been wanting in an 
intelligent comprehension of human nature. Virtue is not manufactured by formal 
methods; such methods can only produce the absence of vice, not the presence of 
individual morality, which is able to.withstand all the assaults of temptation. I have 
found out by experience that we have many more chances ot success when we appeal 
to men through their interests than through merely their good sentiments, and that, 
by removing from them the opportunity of doing evil, we naturally lead them to do 
well, while we fail to turn them from vice by wearying sermons. At the same time I 
should rigorously insist on attendance at divine service on Sunday, on daily prayers, 
and on religious instruction in all central prisons. But I think that religions reformation 
Should not be the declared object, but left to develop itself in proportion as hope and 
confidence re-enter the heart of the criminal, and as he comes to see that his own welfare 
depends on his reconciliation to society. 

It would appear that private persons are, to a certain extent, permit¬ 
ted to visit and seek the moral regeneration of prisoners. On this sub¬ 
ject the count says: 

There are few persons in Russia who devote themselves to the moral reform of pris¬ 
oners. Some remarkable exceptions exist; among others, Dr. Hase, who has left behind 
him a touching celebrity for his efforts in that direction. 

There are no Sunda 5 T -schools in Russian prisons, such as they exist 
among us. But in most prisons of any size, discussions on scientific 
subjects are held on Sunday, in which the prisoners take a lively interest. 

As regards the correspondence of prisoners, it is permitted under the 
necessary limitations ; but since the greater part of the prisoners can 
neither read nor write, the matter becomes of comparatively little con¬ 
sequence. 

Visits from relatives are permitted, but with due restrictions. The 
effect of these visits, in a moral point of view, depends on the morality 
of the visitors. The reporter adds : 

I do not suppose that parents coming to visit their children could injure them* 
Moreover, I regard that degree of disciplinary punishment which suspends the right 
of receiving all such visits, without exception, as unjust and unwise, particularly as 
it often punishes the visitors much more than it does the prisoners. 

§ 11. Only Lutheran chaplains are employed in the prisons of Sweden. 
Few prisoners are found in them of any other religious belief. 

The duties of the chaplain are to hold divine service, administer the 
sacraments, and give religious instruction ; to ascertain by conversation 
the state of the prisoners’minds, and seek their reformation; to take 
charge of the library and church registers, in which latter lie enters 
observations on each prisoner’s manner of life and conduct. If the 
chaplain is equal to his high mission and zealous in its duties, the facul¬ 
ties of the prisoners are considerably developed; they gain a clear per¬ 
ception of justice; and many of them are led to form a firm resolve to 
live in future an honest life. 

Sunday-schools are found in a few prisons, but they are exceptions 
to a general rule. Where they exist, they have a beneficial effect. 

Persons not connected with the administration can have access to the 
prisoners only by special permission. Men of high character, and, 
known to be prudent and capable of laboring for their moral reforma. 


MORAL AGENCIES RUSSIA—SWEDEN—SWITZERLAND. 55 


tion, are readily permitted to visit them. In the prisons for women 
well-known ladies have obtained leave to visit tlie prisoners on Sunday 
to instruct them, and give them practice in singing. 

The privilege of correspondence is pretty freely granted to prisoners, 
particularly with their nearest relatives, and is found to have a good 
influence on them. 

As regards visits, prisoners awaiting trial, and those sentenced cor- 
rectionally, have a large license; but those sentenced to hard labor can¬ 
not see even their nearest of kin without special permission from the 
director. Visits are always made in the presence of the director or of 
an officer detailed to that dutj r . Duly regulated, they have no bad 
effect. 

§ 12. Ministers of the Reformed and of the Catholic religion act as 
chaplains in the prisons of Switzerland. The rabbi of the nearest 
locality is invited to visit such co-religionists as are occasionally found 
in them. 

In the establishments which are imperfectly organized, the chaplains, 
for the most part, confine themselves to the celebration of public worship. 
In proportion as the prisons approach the category of penitentiaries that 
aim at the reformation of the prisoners, these officers are seen paying 
regular visits to them, consoling and counseling them, superintending 
the religious instruction of the juvenile delinquents, and fulfilling toward 
them all the duties of their ministry. 

Religious instruction, as a means of reforming prisoners, is looked 
upon in Switzerland as of the highest importance and as exercising the 
happiest influence, particularly.if the person charged with it possesses 
the special aptitudes suited to the high mission which he is called to 
fulfill, and throws aside, as f far as he may, mere dogmatic questions. 
Prisoners in whose heart the religious sentiment is not extinguished at 
the time of their entrance are easily impressed by the exhortations of 
the chaplains; on the other hand, such as do not possess it offer to the 
instructions of religion a soil arid and ungrateful. Among prisoners 
self-deception and hypocrisy are not unfrequently met with ; yet it often 
happens that individuals who reject or are ignorant of the Bible end by 
finding in its pages the consolation of which they are in pursuit. 

Sunday-schools, properly so called, do not exist in the Swiss prisons. 
At Zurich the chaplain holds a catechetical exercise in the afternoon, 
and afterward an instructor gives a lesson in sacred music. 

Persons of both sexes, not connected with the administration, are 
admitted into the prisons to labor for the moral improvement of the 
prisoners. In the cantons which have new penitentiaries, such persons 
are authorized to visit the prisoners in virtue of decrees of the legisla¬ 
tive authorities. This is especially the case with members of aid societies, 
who have free access to the prisoners whom they seek to succor. 

In the female penitentiaries lady patronesses are frequently met 
with, especially in the cities which were visited in 1839 by Elizabeth 
Fry, and where, at the instance of that good and charitable woman, 
ladies’ aid societies were organized to console, to place, to watch over, 
and to sustain criminal women. At Zurich, where a society of this kind 
exists, the lady patronesses give to the female prisoners in the peniten¬ 
tiaries regular lessons and take charge of their religious instruction. 

The privilege of correspondence with friends is accorded, but under 
different regulations and with greater or less frequency in different 
cantons. 

In the establishments where the progressive Crofton system has 
been introduced, prisoners of the middle class cau write letters every two 


56 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


months, those of the higher class every month. But an extension of 
this favor is often granted, especially in cases where the correspondence 
is of such a character as to draw closer the ties of family, to exert a 
good influence, and contribute to the moral cure of the prisoner. This 
powerful means of moral reformation is more or less neglected in estab¬ 
lishments where the organization is imperfect. As the letters pass 
under the inspection of the director, his eye sometimes detects senti¬ 
ments which have their taint of hypocrisy,* but, in spite of that, the 
correspondence of the prisoners manifests a strong family affection, and 
awakens tender household memories. 

The visits of relations and intimate acquaintances are permitted the 
same as correspondence, and are most carefully regulated in the prisons 
where penitentiary education receives the greatest attention. The in¬ 
ternal regulations of different penitentiaries grant the indulgence of 
visits more or less frequently, but the average is about once a month. 
As in the case of correspondence, an extension of this privilege is often 
accorded when the visits are found to have a salutary effect. 

§ 13. The American report on this branch of the general subject is 
exceedingly meager, and appears to the undersigned, with all possible 
respect to the eminent and noble-hearted author, not quite just to the 
chaplains of our higher prisons, which alone, for the most part, of 
American prisons, have an officer of that class. There is scarcely a 
county jail in the country which enjoys the services of even a nominal 
chaplain, and it is doubtful whether there is one which has such an offi¬ 
cer exclusively devoted to the moral and spiritual welfare of its inmates. 
Most of the state-prisons have chaplains, but few, it is believed, of the 
prisons holding a middle ground between the state-prison and the 
county jail have them. The report represents indifferent chaplains as 
the rule, good and effective ones as the exception. The undersigned 
would reverse this order. He has had personal knowledge of many of 
these gentlemen, and, as a class, he cannot help regarding them as 
earnest, devoted, hard-working, useful prison officers, and, he is sorry 
to be compelled to add, very ill-paid for the work they do. It has often 
been matter of wonder to him that men so competent could be had fora 
compensation so disproportioned to both the amount and the value of 
the service rendered. He has known instances in which the services of 
chaplains have been sought by wealthy churches, at largely increased 
rates of remuneration, and in which they nevertheless resisted the 
tempting call and remained in their humbler position of prison pastor, 
from love to the Master and to those in whom, all fallen and criminal 
as they are, He has deigned to declare that He is Himself visited and 
ministered to. However large the prison may be, even though it con¬ 
tain an average population of a thousand or more souls, there is seldom, 
if ever, more than one chaplain ; and he is charged, not only with the 
spiritual care of this immense multitude, but also with the oversight of 
the prisoners’ correspondence and with that of the library, superadded 
to all which is not uufrequently the giving, or at least the superintend¬ 
ing, of scholastic instruction. 

Most of our state-prisons, and some of a lower grade, have Sunday- 
schools, large and flourishing; not a few have weekly prayer-meetings, 
which are attended by prisoners varying in number"from a score or so 
to several hundred. Into most of our prisons, workers from outside, of 
known prudence and piety, are freely admitted to labor, in a variety of 
ways, for the moral and spiritual benefit of the convicts, in most cases 
(not in all) with excellent effect. 

Correspondence and visits of friends are permitted in all prisons, but 


MORAL AGENCIES-UNITED STATES-ENGLAND-IRELAND. 57 


under a variety of regulations and restrictions too numerous for state¬ 
ment. The general testimony of wardens and chaplains is that the effect 
of both is beneficial rather than otherwise. 

§ 14. In England, every convict-prison has its staff of ministers of 
religion, who hold two religious services on Sunday and morning 
prayers daily, besides performing all the ordinary pastoral duties during 
the week. For the most part, the chaplains are not permitted to have 
any other occupations than those appertaining to their office, thus being 
left free to devote their whole time to the improvement of the prisoners 
placed under their spiritual care. The advantage of thus inculcating 
religious truth and seeking to awake religious feeling is held to be in- 
contestible, and notwithstanding the doubts which have been called out 
by injudicious exaggeration of the results of these influences, the ad¬ 
vantages thus afforded are much appreciated by prisoners, and the exer¬ 
tions of the ministers of religion bear perhaps as much fruit as in the 
world outside. 

Volunteer working visitors are not admitted into the convict-prisons. 

Periodical letters to respectable acquaintances are allowed, the fre¬ 
quency varying according to the class. The same is true as regards the 
receiving of visits. Both privileges are found to be beneficial in their 
influence on the convicts. 

All county and borough jails in England are provided with chap¬ 
lains. Their duties are substantially the same as those of the chaplains 
of convict-prisons. No Sunday-schools exist in these prisons and no 
volunteer workers are admitted. 

Letters may be written and visits received by prisoners on the expira¬ 
tion of the first three months of their imprisonment; but as a very 
small proportion of the inmates remain three months, and not one in a 
thousand six months, it would seem to be, in regard to the mass, but a 
barren privilege. 

§ 15. The regulations and usages of the Irish convict-prisons are sub¬ 
stantially the same as those of England in all that relates to the general 
subject-matter treated of in the present chapter. 

No official report was made to the congress in so far as the borough 
and county prisons of Ireland are concerned. 


CHAPTER V. 

SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION. 

§ 1. The average proportion of prisoners unable to read, in Austria, 
on their commitment, was, during the years 1868, 1869, and 1870, 38 per 
cent, of men and 50 per cent, of women. 

As a rule, all Austrian prisons are provided with schools. All 
prisoners of a suitable age to learn, (thirty-five years and under,) and 
who are either wholly illiterate or of defective attainments, are required 
to attend the prison school. 

The subjects taught are the common primary branches, together With 
composition, the elements of natural history, physics, geography and 
history, and, in rare cases, drawing and geometry. Besides this, in all 
the prisons for men, instruction in vocal and instrumental music is 
given, but only as a reward of merit and to such prisoners as possess 
musical gifts. The progress made in the schools is satisfactory. 

Libraries have existed in the prisons only during the last few years. 



58 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


The works selected are, besides those of a religious character, popular 
works on history, geography, natural history, physics, husbandry, tech¬ 
nical subjects, and political economy, books of an entertaining aud 
instructive character, as biographies of celebrated men, accounts of trav¬ 
els, descriptions of customs and manners, and moral tales. The use of the 
libraries is constantly increasing. Those who are able to read receive 
books for themselves; for those in associated confinement who are una¬ 
ble to read, readers are appointed. Preference is generally given to tales, 
travels, and biographical sketches. Only prisoners of some education 
ask for books of a higher standard. The influence of this reading is 
exceedingly good, not only because the keeping of order and quietness 
is thereby greatly assisted, but because the mind of the prisoner is in 
this way withdrawn from his every-day life, directed to new objects, 
stirred to higher and better thoughts, and thereby unconsciously enno¬ 
bled. 

§ 2. In Belgium, 49 per cent, of the prisoners when committed are un¬ 
able to read. Every prison with fifty inmates or more has a school or a 
teaching lecturer. At the penitentiary of Louvain, attendance is obliga¬ 
tory on all prisoners; at Ghent, it is obligatory on all under thirty years 
of age, and is permitted to those who have passed that limit. In other 
prisons, attendance is obligatory on all juvenile delinquents and on all 
adult prisoners who, having a sentence of at least six months, are uuder 
forty; it is permitted to all others. The instruction given in the peniten¬ 
tiary schools includes religion—which is taught by the chaplains or un¬ 
der their immediate direction—morals, reading, writing, arithmetic, ele¬ 
mentary notions of grammar, history and geography—particularly the 
history and geography.of Belgium—the elements of geometry and linear 
drawing in their relations with trades, and other branches of a 
practical utility. Great progress is made by the prisoners in these 
studies. 

Libraries are found in all the prisons of Belgium. They contain three 
classes of works, which meet three several wants: that of reforming 
the prisoners, that of instructing them, and that of diverting their 
minds by the reading of books at once entertaining, moral, and instruc¬ 
tive. 

The prisoners are very fond of reading, and spend much time in it. 
The influence of these readings is found to be excellent, and the forma¬ 
tion of prison libraries (it is thought) cannot be made with too much 
care and discrimination. 

§ 3. In Denmark one or two school-masters are appointed to each 
prison. Prisoners under eighteen, who are only isolated at night, 
receive a special treatment, with two or three hours’ instruction a day. 
In cellular prisons, convicts under forty receive two to three hours’ in¬ 
struction a week. In the associate prisons, instruction is only given 
on Sundays. Every prison has school-rooms and a library. 

§ 4. The average proportion of adult prisoners unable to read in the 
French prisons on their committal is 5G per cent.; of juvenile prisoners 
81 per cent, are found wholly illiterate. 

The organization of primary instruction in the prisons of France 
dates back to 1819. In virtue of a decree of December 26 of that year, 
primary instruction, embracing reading and the first elements of calcu¬ 
lation, was required to be given to prisoners, following, as far as their 
number permitted, the method of mutual instruction. Since that time 
the administration has established schools in all the important prisons. 
In 1866, the minister of the interior ordered that a greater extension be 
given toprimary instruction, and required that almost the entire prison- 


SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM, ETC. 59 

population should be made to share in it, with the exception of old men, 
invalids, and those whose perversity requires their exclusion. The in¬ 
struction given in the prison schools comprises reading, writing, the 
first four rules of arithmetic, and the legal system of weights and meas¬ 
ures. To this list of branches may be added mental calculation, sur¬ 
veying, linear drawing, and general notions on the geography and his¬ 
tory of France. The administration has not been able, thus far, to al¬ 
low all the prisoners to participate in the benefits of primary instruc¬ 
tion. While striving to give a stronger impulse to instruction, it has 
been obliged to discriminate, in admitting prisoners to the school, by 
receiving first the youngest, afterward adults, and among the latter 
those whose conduct is the most satisfactory. 

The progress made by the prisoners is generally rather slow, owing to 
the little aptitude of the greater part of them. Many who entered wholly 
illiterate leave the prison knowing how to read, to write passably well, 
and to perform the simpler operations of arithmetic; but a complete 
elementary education is rare. The administration has not been as well 
satisfied as it could have wished with the results of the instruction given 
in the prisons; and it is at this moment engaged in seeking new meth¬ 
ods of instruction and a better organization of the schools in the peni¬ 
tentiary establishments. 

The prison libraries include works for Catholics, Protestants, and 
Israelites, which are intended to serve for their moral and religious in¬ 
struction ; also, books of history, accounts of voyages, literary works, 
treatises on ordinary and technical science, novels, and miscellaneous 
works. These books are examined with care by the council of general 
inspection of the prisons. The works of piety admitted by each relig¬ 
ion are designated only on the recommendation of the ministers of the 
different religions. The catalogue contains special indication of the 
books more particularly adapted to men, to women, and to children. 
At this moment the superior administration is engaged in re-organizing 
and enlarging libraries in all the penitentiary establishments. 

The prisoners are generally fond of reading. Those who have a 
knowledge of this art nearly always profit from the practice of it. They 
have their Sundays for reading, and on week-days they read during the 
hours of rest and at meals. In some establishments there are readings 
in common to convicts who are unoccupied and to others during the 
intervals of labor. Sometimes such readings are given during meal¬ 
time in the refectory. The prisoners listen to them with interest, but 
those who know how prefer to read to themselves. The distribution of 
books takes place under the superintendence of the instructor or the 
chaplain, who, in his selection, lias regard to the antecedents, the apti¬ 
tudes, and the conduct of each prisoner; and the officers charged with 
this duty perform it in such manner as to cultivate a taste for reading 
by all the means which are consistent with the exigencies of the service. 
Books specially written for piisoners are not those which they prefer. 
They read with greater pleasure books of history, voyages, novels, and 
narratives which have touches of the marvelous, of elevated sentiment, 
and of renowned actions. 

Beading is found to exert a happy moral influence upon the prisoners. 
Those who contract a taste for it during their imprisonment are gener¬ 
ally well behaved. Properly directed, reading effects a salutary revo¬ 
lution in the soul and imagination of the prisoner. Hence, the choice 
of books becomes a matter of great importance. Works which amuse 
by the interest of the narrative and the charm of the style, and those 
which have in them an element of instruction, contribute to enlighten 


60 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


and to inform the prisoner at the same time that they afford to him 
diversion and consolation. They serve to awaken in him the love of 
koine, and sometimes predispose him to the duties of religion. 

§ 5. The German states report as follows: 

(1) In Baden only 4 per cent, of the prisoners are unable to read 
when received. Schools are organized in all the prisons. Male pris¬ 
oners under thirty five are required to attend, women till they are 
thirty; beyond the ages named, those attend who choose. The sub¬ 
jects of instruction are the same as those in good primary schools. 
With few exceptions, the prisoners make satisfactory progress. Every 
prison has a good library. The books in it are religious, instructive, 
and amusing. The prisoners for the most part are fond of reading. 
Books written expressly for prisoners are in little request. Educated 
prisoners prefer descriptions of voyages, biographies, and technical 
books; those less educated prefer tales. Suitable reading exercises a 
beneficial influence; it instructs and relaxes the prisoners’ minds, and 
thus aids their reformation; it favors discipline by removing the feeling 
of ennui and the tendency to disorder. 

(2) In Bavaria 12 per cent, of the prisoners on commitment are illit¬ 
erate. Schools are established only in houses of correction and the 
general prisons. Attendance is obligatory till thirty-six; after that, it 
is optional; but prisoners under thirty-six who are already sufficiently 
educated are excused, if they desire it. 

School instruction comprises reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, 
and German; choral singing and drawing are also taught—the two latter 
subjects being optional. Prisoners who attend school for less than four 
months make no great progress; those who have a longer term make 
very considerable advance. 

The libraries consist principally of treatises of a religious and moral 
character, of books which are generally useful, of popularly-written 
works on natural and general history, and of popular editions of German 
classics. 

Almost all prisoners in cells read a great deal and enjoy it, but those 
undergoing collective imprisonment prefer conversation. Reading ex¬ 
ercises a good influence by doing away, in great measure, with the evil 
consequences arising from idleness, and promotes the prisoner’s improve¬ 
ment by the cultivation of his mind. Simple tales and entertaining 
books are preferred—religious books least of all. 

(3) Of one hundred prisoners sentenced to hard labor in Prussia, 
seventeen cannot read when they enter the prison. In other prisons a 
less percentage are illiterate. Schools exist in all Prussian prisons 
except four small houses of arrest. 

All prisoners undergoing cellular imprisonment receive instruction. 
Among the associated prisoners preference is given to the young and 
to those whose education has been greatly neglected, and whose intel¬ 
lectual faculties give promise of subsequent progress. 

The prescribed subjects of instruction are sacred history, reading, 
writing, arithmetic, singing, and sometimes drawing. The lessons in 
reading at the same time give instruction in the history and geography 
of Prussia. The arithmetic is such as is useful in daily life. The prison¬ 
ers are diligent in learning, aud make satisfactory progress. 

The prisons have libraries containing religious, instructive, and enter¬ 
taining books. In 1869 the total number of books in these libraries was 
144,418: 42,210 entertaining and instructive, 23,745 educational books ; 
the remainder were religious works. 

Most of the prisoners are willing and diligent readers. They all show 


SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION-GERMAN STATES-ITALY, ETC. 61 

a marked preference for histories and works on natural science written 
in a popular style. Such reading has evidently a very good influence 
on them. 

(4) The prisoners in Saxony are generally sufficiently instructed in the 
elementary branches, but not many of them have gone much beyond 
that degree of education. The penitentiary takes especial care to supply 
the defect of the elementary education by obligatory weekly instruction. 
The general and special preparation for their calling is supplied to the 
prisoners by free instruction on Sundays. Such instruction is not 
obligatory, but the prisoner has a claim to it arising from good behavior. 
It is voluntarily given by the officers, and not by the clergymen and 
teachers alone. The library in the penitentiary of Zwickau contains 
5,000 volumes of religious, instructive, and entertaining books, thus 
providing for all the mental wants of the prisoners who, under the care¬ 
ful assistance of the teachers, are diligent readers. 

< (5) Prisoners unable to read and write on their admission to the prisons of 
Wiirtemberg form a rare exception. Out of 1,317 prisoners present June 
30, 1871, nine could neither read nor write; eight could read and not 
write. All the prisons have schools. The prisoners must attend school 
till thirty years of age; prisoners above that age are allowed to attend. 
The prison schools are as efficient as good primary schools. The branches 
of instruction are reading, writing, arithmetic, moral and sacred history, 
geography, history of the kingdom, and, in some prisons, drawing. 
Those sentenced to short imprisonments have their former knowledge 
recalled and fixed more firmly in their minds; those suffering long 
imprisonment have it extended, and thus get a higher education. Atten¬ 
tive and diligent prisoners are much pleased to take part in the instruc¬ 
tion. In all the prisons there are libraries. The books are religious, 
instructive, or entertaining. 

§ 6. Both scholastic and industrial education is regarded by the peniten¬ 
tiary administration in Italy as a principal agent for the reformation of 
prisoners. To judge of the breadth and efficiency of the former, it will 
suffice to compare the degree of instruction possessed by those who enter 
and those who leave the penitentiaries. The illiterate among those 
entering are: In the bagnios, 92 per cent.; in the penal establishments, 
64 per cent.; and in tbe establishments for minors, 60 per cent. These 
percentages are reduced for those leaving the prisons to: In the first 
class named, 73; in the second, 46; and,in the last, 12for the houses of 
custody and 3 for the reformatories. 

In each penitentiary there exists a school, to which is admitted the largest 
possible number of prisoners, the youngest and best conducted having 
the preference. In the houses of detention and the reformatories, the 
school takes a wide range, as it admits all the inmates indiscriminately, 
and in these are specially taught drawing, vocal, and instrumental mu¬ 
sic, agriculture, some foreign language, &c., and this with admirable 
results. Every prison, whether for juveniles or adults, has a small 
library belonging to it, the formation of which specially occupies the 
attention of the central direction. The greater part of the works 
composing these libraries are books written specially for prisoners, and 
others selected from educational works, written in a pleasing style and 
presenting clear and elementary notions of the national history, mechan¬ 
ics, moral tales, &c. As soon as the prisoners acquire the ability to 
read, they show a great inclination to it*; but almost invariably they 
seek in books some diversion from their monotonous life, or food for the 
imagination, rather than a fund of solid knowledge; consequently few 
of the books read by them are of a didactic character, but the greater 


62 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


part are novels or romances, of course always of an unimpeachable moral 
tendency. 

§ 7. Schools do not exist in all the prisons of Mexico. Wherever they 
do, they are usually frequented by all illiterate prisoners. 

The education imparted consists of the various branches of primary 
instruction and of religious and moral teaching. The progress made is 
satisfactory. 

There are no libraries in the Mexican prisons. Generally prisoners 
do not read much, as they belong for the most part to the lower classes 
of society, where education is seldom imparted. Many are not able to 
read. 

§8. Thirty-five to thirty-eight in the hundred will indicate, with suffi¬ 
cient accuracy, the proportion of prisoners in the Netherlands who are 
unable to read and write at the time of their entrance. 

Schools exist in all penal establishments, except in the police and 
cantonal prisons. In the cellular prisons the instruction is given in the 
cells. All prisoners, up to the age of forty years, who do not know how 
to read and write, are obliged to receive that instruction. 

The branches commonly taught are reading, writing, and arithme¬ 
tic. The system of instruction leaves much to be desired. Reforms 
have been introduced or are in contemplation. In the two central 
prisons for juvenile prisoners, the system of instruction is all that can be 
desired. 

There are libraries in all the prisons, which include books on morals 
and religion, histories, travels, &c. The books are specially classified 
according to the different religions. Most of the prisoners are fond of 
reading; they generally prefer books of historj 7 , travels, and the like. 
Their reading has a happy effect upon them. 

§ 9. Only about one in the hundred of persons committed to prison in 
Norway is entirely illiterate. 

Schools exist in all the penal prisons, but not in the minor prisons of 
the districts; yet, even in these, some instruction is given to ignorant 
young prisoners who remain for any considerable time. Instruction is 
given in religion, reading, and arithmetic; to some extent, also, in 
writing and music. Generally, the prisoners make good progress'. 
Libraries are found in all the prisons. Those in the district prisons 
contain chiefly, though not wholly, religious books; those in the penal 
prisons embrace, besides religious works, histories, travels, &c. Naturally 
the prisoners, especially those confined in the cell-prisons, apply them¬ 
selves eagerly to reading, and evidently profit by it. 

§ 10. In Russia very few of the prisoners, when received, are acquainted 
with reading and writing. Schools are gradually introducing into all 
the prisons of any size. Attendance is optional. As regards the kinds 
and degree of instruction imparted, no details can be given, as peniten¬ 
tiary education is still in its infancy. It is proposed, when fully organ¬ 
ized, to make it broad and comprehensive. Mr. Savenke, a distinguished 
specialist, has already made some remarkable experiments and achieved 
extraordinary results in this department of prison work. 

Libraries, though still but poorly supplied, are found in mauy prisons. 
The prisoners are fond of reading and of having books read to them, 
when there is no compulsion in the case. 

§ 11. Nearly all the prisoners committed to the Swedish prisous can 
read and much the greater part write. 

Schools exist in the associate prisons; in the cellular prisons, the 
inmates are instructed in their cells. All the illiterate are allowed to 
attend upon the lessons, unless they are too old to profit by them. 


SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION-NETHERLANDS-NORWAY, ETC. 63 


Instruction is limited to reading, writing, religion, tlie elements of 
history and geography, orthography, the four fundamental rules of 
arithmetic, and natural history. The progress is about equal to that 
made in the national schools, and is satisfactory. 

There are small libraries in the prisons. The prisoners voluntarily 
spend their leisure time and their holidays in reading, either individ¬ 
ually or in classes. In the latter case one of themselves or an officer 
reads aloud. 

They prefer religious and moral books or accounts of voyages. On 
Sundays they practise sacred music. These exercises have an excellent 
effect both on the minds and manners of the prisoners. 

§ 12. The degree of illiteracy varies in the different cantons of Switzer¬ 
land. The official report sent to the congress from this country states 
the general average, on committal, of wholly illiterate prisoners at 17 per 
cent., and this, notwithstanding education is obligatory in Switzerland 
and in fourteen cantons is also gratuitous.- These facts, taken together, 
show how prolific a source of crime ignorance is. 

Schools are organized in all the improved penitentiaries, and in many 
other establishments lessons are given by the chaplain. It even happens 
that these duties are confided to a prisoner, if he is a teacher by profes¬ 
sion, or if he possesses the necessary knowledge and aptitude. In peni¬ 
tentiary establishments in which schools are opened, all the prisoners, 
except those excused by age—above forty-five—and those subjected to 
the cellular regime , attend lessons in classes. The prisoners receive, on 
an average, from four to five hours’ schooling per week. Those who are 
in the cellular stage are visited by the instructor in their cells, and 
there commence their course of instruction. Three classes are formed 
in the best organized penitentiaries. In the lower class the elementary 
branches only are taught; in the middle class progress is made toward 
the higher branches of study; and in the highest class are studied 
mathematics, physics, technology, and linear drawing, so far as these 
sciences are applied to arts and trades; and even, in some cases, foreign 
languages are taught. 

The progress made differs much in the case of different prisoners. 
Many are remarkable for their zeal and power of acquisition, while others 
advance but slowly. Tlie organ of thought, little accustomed to being 
used, has lost its force. The power of memory is often wanting, and 
the result in these cases is a stupefaction, which leads to indifference. 
Still, the average progress made is highly satisfactory, especially in the 
case of juvenile delinquents. 

Libraries are found in all the prisons. In those of the cantons where 
prison discipline is little advanced, the number of books is limited, and 
works exclusively religious predominate. In the penitentiaries which 
are better organized the libraries are composed of moral and religious 
books, of works of general history and the history of Switzerland, of 
biographies, travels, ethnography, natural history, works on mechanics, 
agriculture, belles-lettres, &c. Bomances of a moral character are not 
excluded. 

The prisoners read, relatively, a great deal in the penitentiaries where 
they pass Sunday in their cells, and where they have at their disposal 
a variety of works. They generally prefer moral tales, narratives of voy¬ 
ages, biographies, Swiss and general history, and works of popular 
science. Beading is found to have a very beneficial effect upon the 
prisoners. It enlarges the circle of their general knowledge, and by 
fuller explanations of what they had learned in the way of routine, it 
developes also their practical knowledge. It is by keeping their minds 


64 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


continually occupied by labor, or by moral and intellectual recreations, 
that that self-respect is oftenest awakened in prisoners which con¬ 
stitutes the best guarantee against secret vice. These elevating and 
noble agencies calm an ardent imagination, and often put to flight ideas 
inspired by base passions and by vicious and criminal sentiments. 

§ 13. The general condition of prisoners iiTthe United States, in point 
of education, is low as compared with the whole population of the country. 
Yet it differs much in different States. In Massachusetts, for a period 
of eight years past, the statistics show very nearly one-third of all 
prisoners to be wholly illiterate; yet in the highest prison, at Charles¬ 
town, the proportion of illiterate convicts since the beginning ot 1864 
has been scarcely more than one in ten. In the Philadelphia prison, 
(eastern penitentiary,) out of 7,092 prisoners received between 1829 and 
1872, about one-fifth (1,418) were wholly illiterate, and almost a sixth 
more (1,124) could only read. In the western penitentiary of Pennsyl¬ 
vania, at Pittsburgh, the proportion of illiterate convicts is less, (42 in 
375, or one-ninth,) while those who can read only is still smaller (47 in 
375, or one-eighth.) In the county prisons of Pennsylvania, more than 
a third of the prisoners are illiterate, and the same is true ot New 
York; but, in the large Western States of Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and 
Wisconsin, the proportion of the illiterate is smaller, and probably does 
not exceed one-fourth. Out of 8,744 convicts received by Mr. Brock¬ 
way in Michigan, 2,100 were wholly illiterate; but in the Michigan 
state-prison, only 42 out of 356, or less than one-eighth, were wholly 
illiterate, though only 286, or three-fourths, could both read and write. 
In the Iowa state-prison, 34 out of 216 could neither read nor write ; 
in the Kansas state-prison, 61 out of 303; while 42 more could read 
indifferently, but not write. In California, 226 convicts in the state- 
prison out of 732 (nearly one-third) were illiterate. But when we look 
at the late slaveholding States, the proportion of illiteracy greatly in¬ 
creases. Of 669 convicts in Maryland, 394, or nearly three-fifths, could 
neither read nor write; of 389 in North Carolina, 264, or more than two- 
thirds, can neither read nor write; in the other fourteen Southern States 
the proportion is probably about the same. Practically, then, two-thirds 
of the prisoners in these sixteen States are illiterate, while in the rest 
of the Union something more than one-third are so, probably; so that 
about half the 38,000 prisoners now in confinement are practically with¬ 
out education, and a large proportion of the remainder possess it to only a 
very limited extent. The women in prison are not so well educated as 
the men, and the short-sentenced convicts, as a rule, not as intelligent as 
those sent to higher prisons. 

The provision made for the mental improvement of prisoners is better 
now in most of the States than it was a few years ago. Public attention 
has been drawn to the subject, and, in a few prisons, not only libraries 
and schools, but lectures have been established, with a view to the gen¬ 
eral education of the convicts and to aid in their reformation. The 
best instance of this prison instruction in the United States is probably 
found in the Detroit House of Correction, where a school-system was 
established in 1869, when the number of convicts was about 360; on the 
1st of May, 1872, it was 402, of whom 296 were men and 106 women. 
During the year 1871 the average number of convicts in the prison was 
385, in school 219, or nearly two-thirds of the whole number. Of this 
average, 141 were men and 78 women, the schools being separate. In 
his last report, Mr. Brock way says : 

This system was introduced among the prisoners to aid their reformation, and is now 
conducted for this purpose ; not so much to relieve the monotony of imprisonment and 
to impart the ability to read, write, and cipher, for the convenience of these accom- 


SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION-SWITZERLAND-UNITED STATES. 65 


plishinents, as to discipline the mind and fit it to receive and to evolve in the life the 
thoughts and principles that constitute their possessors good citizens. Attendance 
upon the school is made obligatory, and the intellectual tasks are required, as are the 
industrial. The sessions of the general school are two and one half hours each, on two 
evenings every week, and are for recitations chiefly. The writing-school is also held 
on two evenings each week for both men and women, and the men’s writing-class is 
followed each evening with a normal or teachers’ class, in preparation for the general 
school. The women associate a singing-exercise with their writing-class on each 
evening. All prisoners who attend school are supplied with a light in their cell, for 
study, and all draw books from the library. Every Saturday, at 5 o’clock, all the 
prisoners in the institution (numbering now 440) assemble in the chapel to listen to a 
lecture. This is the crowning feature of our educational effort; during 1871 we had 
forty-six lectures—carefully-prepared, well-delivered lectures—many of which had 
been delivered to first-class audiences of citizens, and were worthy of a place in any 
lyceum-course. 

The following details, given by the teachers, are too important, as 
well as too interesting, to be omitted: 

The twenty-one classes into which the school has been divided have been taught by 
twenty-eight teachers, selected with a single exception from the prisoners themselves. 
The changes in teachers have been much less numerous than was the case in previous 
years. It has been noticed that men sentenced for considerable periods make the best 
teachers, not simply from the fact that they take a greater interest in what must 
occupy them for some time, but because they have more force of character, more deci¬ 
siveness. Some of the worst men, morally, have made the best teachers. From the 
monthly record of progress which has been kept, it appears that the work done by each 
of the prison classes iu arithmetic, which has been the subject in reference to which 
chiefly the school has been graded, has averaged as much as that which is usually done 
by three classes of corresponding rank in our public schools. In other words, a year 
and a half school-work iu arithmetic has been done during the last forty-five evening 
sessions. 

The song of opening, the brief talk upon some scientific theme, the lessons of the 
evening, have been listened to with attention and entered upon with avidity. There 
is evidence on every hand that the school has furnished the themes on which much 
thought has been bestowed iu the work-shop and in the cell. The pleasure in the 
business of the school-room, the evident delight of the men in the work assigned them, 
the progress they have made in manners and in studies, have been much greater than 
I at all anticipated. I think no one before the trial would have said that men long 
unused to study, or who had never known it, working all day iu the shops, with two 
evenings’ instruction per week by their fellow-prisoners a little in advance of them¬ 
selves, would in main studies make two or three times the progress which the pupils 
in our public schools make under the most favorable circumstances; and yet such has 
been our constant experience. Three years ago the women’s school had but one 
teacher. There were none among the prisoners competent to assist in the work of 
teaching. There are at this date seveu regular assistants teaching quite successfully. 
They have been educated for it in the school; and while they are teaching others they 
receive also practical instruction, not only in the lessons which they are studying, but 
iu methods of teaching. The school is now very well graded and classified. Nightly 
records are made of each individual in school, and a system of monthly examinations 
and reports is in operation, which not ouly tests the progress of the pupils, but meas¬ 
ures the success of the teachers also. Hence the new school-year of 1872 opens very 
auspiciously. 

This testimony is the more reliable, especially in what relates to the 
comparative progress made by the prison-students and by the pupils in 
the public schools, inasmuch as Mr. Tarbell, the principal of the male 
prison-school, is also principal of one of the most important of the public 
schools of Detroit, and hence speaks with thorough knowledge of both 
classes of schools and scholars. 

Mr. Brockway makes this frank confession and gives this sound ad¬ 
vice : 

In view of the benefits of the school it seems incredible that I could have spent 
more than twenty years in the management of prisoners, and never, until 1868, have 
introduced this measure. Let me urge all who can do it thoroughly to put this feature 
into their management, as indispensable to satisfactory reformatory results, working 
and waiting for such changes in the law as shall enable us to carry the education of 
every prisoner we receive to a point promotive of his pecuniary prosperity, his conscious 
self-respect, and his probity of deportment. 

JT. Ex. 185-5 


66 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


General ifilsbury, of the Albany penitentiary, the teacher of Mr.. 
Brock way in general prison management and discipline, is, as regards 
penitentiary education, nobly following the example of his distinguished 
pupil. He has fitted up a large and commodious school-room, giving a 
desk to each convict-scholar, and other accommodations equal to those 
afforded in the best public schools of our large cities. The work of 
instruction is vigorously prosecuted and is yielding satisfactory results. 

Prison-schools are organized or instruction is given at the cell- 
door in many of our state-prisons; but it is farflrom being as thor¬ 
oughly organized or as effective as at the Detroit House of Correc¬ 
tion. Of the 16,000 prisoners in the state-prisons of the Union at the 
present moment, from 4,000 to 6,000 may be receiving scanty instruction 
in schools of some sort. Of the estimated 22,000 prisoners in common 
jails and houses of correction it is safe to say that not more than 3,000 
are receiving any scholastic instruction whatever. We have already 
seen that about 20,000 of the 38,000 prisoners in the whole country are 
practically illiterate, and certainly less than 8,000 of these are under 
instruction in the prisons. Such a condition of things calls loudly for 
reform, and it is, therefore, a cheering circumstance to be able to add 
that the number of prison-schools is constantly increasing, and that 
their character improves day by day. 

The condition of penal institutions in the United States is much better, 
in respect of libraries than of schools. Most of the state-prisons and* 
houses of correction have libraries, some of them large and excellent. 
Probably the aggregate number of volumes in these two classes of prisons 
is 25,000. With the exception of the States in which slavery prevailed 
till within a recent period, of prisoners confined in the state-prisons 
from eight to nine-tenths are able to read sufficiently well to be enter¬ 
tained and profited by it. The taste for reading, thanks to the good 
libraries in our prisons, has become quite general with the prisoners; 
and there is a singular unanimity among the officers of prisons as to 
the high advantage they derive from the indulgence of this taste. With 
one voice they bear testimony to the value of the libraries in communi¬ 
cating useful knowledge to the prisoners, in elevating their minds, in 
beguiling many an otherwise tedious hour, in making them cheerful and 
contented, in affording material for profitable reflection, in supplying; 
good topics for conversation with them, in improving the discipline,, 
and in constituting one of the most effective of reformatory agencies. 

§ 14. The department of education in the English convict-prisons, in¬ 
cluding the care of the library and the distribution of books among the 
prisoners, belongs to the chaplain. Books are supplied to the prisoners,, 
both of a purely religious and of a more general character; and those 
who are uneducated are taught by a staff'of schoolmasters at least the 
elements of reading and writing; those who have already some knowl¬ 
edge have opportunities and encouragement in improving themselves.. 
As a knowledge of reading and writing affords so much opportunity for 
mental and moral improvement, and may have so important an effect on 
a prisoner’s well-being in after-life, great inducements are offered to 
prisoners to exert themselves to attain it, by rendering some of the sub¬ 
sequent privileges they may gain conditional on their being able to read 
and write. For example, no convict can be promoted to the first class 
unless he can read and write; and, after he has been under instruction 
a sufficient time, he is obliged, if he wishes to enjoy the privilege of com¬ 
municating by letter with his friends, to do it himself, and without as¬ 
sistance. Of course, exceptions to this rule are made, in the case of 
men who, from age or mental incapacity, cannot be expected to* 


SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION-ENGLAND-IRELAND. 


67 


acquire even the elements of knowledge. Half-yearly examinations 
are held to ascertain the progress made by each prisoner, and the result 
is, in the main, satisfactory. Of 775 prisoners discharged from the 
prisons at Chatham, Portland, and Portsmouth, the 158 who could 
neither read nor write when convicted had learned to do both while in 
prison; and most of the remainder had made advances in the knowl¬ 
edge which they had previously possessed. 

Of 157,223 committed to the county and borough prisons of England 
in 1870, 34 per cent, could neither read nor write, and G2 per cent, could 
do one or both imperfectly, leaving only a residue of 4 per cent, who had 
mastered these important arts. Most or all of these prisons have schools 
and libraries. But the report submitted by the inspectors to the con¬ 
gress affords no information on these points beyond this naked state¬ 
ment. 

§ 15. Of prisoners committed to the Irish convict-prisons, 22 per cent, 
of males and 63 per cent, of females are wholly illiterate. 

Libraries exist in all the convict-prisons, but they do not appear to be 
very well provided with books, beyond those of a religious character, which 
are chiefly Bibles, prayer-books, and catechisms of the Episcopal and 
Roman Catholic churches. Schools are organized in all the prisons, and 
the work done in them is highly commended by the inspector of public 
schools. 


CHAPTER VI. 

PRISON LABOR. 

§ 1. Penal labor, as such, does not exist in the prisons of Austria, 
although difficult and disagreeable work is sometimes awarded by way 
of disciplinary punishment. A considerable variety of trades is pursued in 
the Austrian prisons. Ho less than twenty are named, and the state¬ 
ment ends with an et cetera. Besides handicrafts pursued within the 
prison-walls, trustworthy prisoners who so desire are employed in open- 
air work, as farmers, gardeners, masons, bricklayers, laborers on streets 
and railways, stone-breakers, &c. Latterly prisoners sentenced by 
the higher courts are much employed in out door work. The effect of 
this is found beneficial in two ways: 1, the prisoners so occupied, the 
greater part of whom are serving out their first sentences, are thus saved 
from the evil effects of association with other prisoners; and, 2, their 
health is better, and hence their power of production while at work is 
greater. 

The system of hiring the labor of the prisoners to contractors is preferred 
in Austria, provided, always, that contractors of a suitable character 
can be found$ otherwise, the prison-direction manages the labor on 
behalf of the state. The contract-system is preferred for two reasons : 
first, because it prevents loss and damage; and, secondly, because it 
enables the officers to devote themselves entirely to what is deemed their 
proper duty, the care of the prisoners. There is, nevertheless, confessed 
to be a grave disadvantage connected with this system in the fact that 
an outside element is thus introduced among the prisoners unfavorable 
to their moral improvement. Still, it is believed that this disadvantage 
may be reduced to a minimum by a careful selection of contractors, 
foremen, and workmen. The average proportion of prisoners for the last 
three years who were ignorant of a trade at the time of committal was, 
in Ihe higher prisons, men, 8 per cent.; women, 24 per cent.; in regard 



68 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


to tlie other prisons, statistics are wanting. Every such prisoner learns 
a trade in prison, if he is sentenced for a sufficiently long time. Pains 
are taken to guide the prisoner in judging of his own capability, that so 
he may learn to value it, and be thereby induced to earn an honest 
living. Thus he is taught, not only how to work, but how to estimate 
the Avorth of an upright life; and he is quickened in his industry by 
receiving a portion of what he earns during his incarceration. 

§ 3. No distinction is made in the prisons of Denmark between penal 
and industrial labor. The contract-system is in use here. It is regarded 
as the best, both economically and with regard to reformatory effect. 
However, it is hedged about with the greatest care, and all intermeddling 
by contractors with the treatment of the prisoners is completely cut off. 
Labor is regarded not merely as a source of revenue, but rather as an 
essential condition of the due execution of the sentence, and as a neces¬ 
sary agent in the moral regeneration of the prisoner. The profit derived 
from it does not meet the current expenses of the prisons, since these, 
including the administration, amount to $70 a year per capita , while the 
profit of the prison labor is only about $40. 

§ 2. Penal labor, as distinguished from industrial, does not exist in 
the prisons of Belgium. The report enumerates thirty industrial occu¬ 
pations as those in which the prisoners are engaged. The employments 
introduced into the prisons are chosen, preferably, from among those 
most likely to afford the prisoners, after liberation, the means of an 
honest livelihood. It is held in Belgium that labor ought not to be im¬ 
posed as a punishment, since the first necessity of man is labor, and the 
first sentiment to be developed in him is the love of labor. The liberated 
prisoner oiight not to carry with him, on his discharge, the idea that 
work is a punishment in this world, and that he has suffered it long 
enough during his imprisonment to hasten, at the hour of his deliver¬ 
ance, to free himself from its chains. Labor should be exhibited to him 
in the prison (as it is in society) as the source of the physical and moral 
elevation of man. He ought, in all things, so to identify the life of man 
with the necessity and the attraction of labor that even in captivity it 
should be still, if not the image of happiness, at least a solace attached 
to its exercise and an idea of punishment from its privation. In a word, 
if labor ought to enter as a penal element into penitentiary imprison¬ 
ment, it is not in the use but the privation of it. Undoubtedly, labor 
in penitentiary imprisonment ought to be obligatory- but it ought not 
to be imposed on the prisoner under the empire of constraint, but as an 
obligation to which his reason, his interest, his necessities, everything, 
ought to urge him. Penal labor is, therefore, repudiated in Belgium as 
inconsistent, in its very nature, with the fundamental idea of a true 
prison discipline. 

Two systems of labor are found in the Belgian prisons, namely, that 
of letting the labor to contractors and that of working it by the state. 
Each of these systems is thought to have its special advantages and 
disadvantages. The former, it is claimed, yields the largest revenues 
and offers facilities for diversifying the labor of the prisoners and afford¬ 
ing them occupations suited to their special aptitudes, while the latter 
offers certain advantages, (though it is not stated what they are,) when 
it is a question of labor of easy execution or of the creation of products 
for the use of the administration itself. Care is taken to state in the 
report sent in by Belgium that the contractors are placed under the 
immediate supervision of the directors, a statement which is tanta¬ 
mount to an admission that the system is extremely open to abuse, and 
needs to be guarded and watched with thejgreatest circumspection. 


PRISON LABOR-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM-DENMARK, ETC. 69 

Only one system of letting the labor prevails—that of awarding it to 
contractors who offer remunerative prices and adequate guarantees of 
solvency and morality. All the prison-keepers are required to be arti¬ 
sans, and they are charged, not only with the supervision of the pris¬ 
oners belonging to their several sections, but also with instructing the 
prisoners in the trades which they are learning. From GO to 70 per cent, 
of the prisoners have no regular business or assured means of support 
when committed. It is looked upon as a point of the greatest import¬ 
ance to impart to them, during their imprisonment, the art of self-help 
by teaching them some regular business and training them to the love 
of work; the more so, as it is believed that ignorance of a business 
and aversion to labor are among the chief causes which impel men to 
the commission of crimes against property. Jlence special effort is made 
to give to the prisoner a clear perception and strong realization of the 
necessity of mastering a business while undergoing his punishment, so 
that, after his release, he may be able to work for his food, his bed, 
his clothing—in a word, to assure the satisfaction of his essential 
wants. 

§ 4. In the prisons of France there is no penal labor, as that expres¬ 
sion is commonly understood. The penal system is no longer founded, 
as formerly, on suffering and terror. Corporal punishments have dis¬ 
appeared from it. What is desired at present is to punish the criminal ; 
w hat is sought as the end of that punishment is his reformation. There¬ 
fore, industrial labor alone is found in the prisons, obligatory in the 
case of those under sentence, permitted in the case of the arrested and 
the accused. It is thereby sought to prevent the dangers of idleness 
and to form the taste and the habit of labor. In the smaller prisons 
there is difficulty in organizing the labor. In the central prisons the 
labor is thoroughly organized ; if any are without occupation, it is the 
exception, and not the rule. Large industrial workshops in these estab¬ 
lishments continually present a scene of busy toil. Different industries, 
to the number of fifty or sixty, have been introduced into the male cen¬ 
tral prisons. The principal are shoe-making, the manufacture of hosiery, 
weaving, button-making, cabinet-work, lock-smithing, the manufacture 
of hardware, tanning, &c. There are, besides, three establishments 
in Corsica and one in Belle Isle, in which the prisoners are engaged 
in agricultural labors. Sewing, which can be applied to very different 
kinds of w ork, is almost the only industry pursued iu the female cen¬ 
tral prisons. Piece-work is the general rule. With a view to avoid the 
competition of prison labor with free labor, the rates of payment for the 
work done have to be studied and regulated by the administration, 
which carefully considers before hand the different interests involved. 
The rates must be the same as those paid to free industry for the same 
kinds of labor. 

The contract system of labor prevails in most of the prisons of France, 
and is the one to which the administration gives its preference. 

Of the men committed to the central prisons, 5 per cent, had no reg¬ 
ular calling or business prior to commitment; of the women, 12 per 
cent. Evidently this cannot mean that so large a proportion had 
learned trades and become artisans. The administration exerts itself, 
as far as possible, to cause to be taught to the prisoners previously 
without a regular business some calling which will enable them after 
liberation to gain an honest living. 

§ 5. Germany reports: There is no merely penal labor in the prisons ot 
any of the German states. 

(1.) In the Grand Duchy of Baden, the labor of the prisoners is not let 


70 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


to contractors, but is managed by tlie administration itself. This sys¬ 
tem is preferred because it enables the authorities to observe the state 
of each prisoner and to exclude all outside elements prejudicial to dis¬ 
cipline and reformation. It is sought to introduce variety of trades, so 
that too many may not be employed on any one to the injury of private 
industry. An extensive market and the highest prices are sought. 

Forty per cent, of the prisoners are ignorant of a trade on entry. To 
impart to these a trade and the power of self help, if they have the 
requisite ability and stay long enough in prison, is the principal work. 
This result is arrived at by improving the prisoner’s morals, by scholas¬ 
tic and industrial instruction, and by the whole prison treatment. 

(2) The several industries in the Bavarian prisons are conducted by 
their respective administrations. When prison-labor is given to con¬ 
tractors, another authority is placed between the administration and 
the prisoner, which cares only for making the greatest profit out of 
the prisoner’s work. Not only is discipline thereby interfered with, but 
the character of the punishment is changed aud its purpose is placed in 
jeopardy. From the disciplinary and penitentiary point of view, the 
giving of prison labor to contractors is condemned in Bavaria, even 
though the profit derived therefrom may be greater than if the adminis¬ 
tration carried it on. 

The proportion of prisoners who, on entering prison, are ignorant of a 
trade is 29 per cent. It is made a special object to impart a trade—and 
so to teach the art of self-help—to all prisoners who have the necessary 
capabilities and whose terms of sentence are long enough to permit it. 

(3) In the prisons of Prussia more than fifty different trades are car¬ 
ried on by the men aud ten by the women $ a portion of the male pris¬ 
oners are also occupied in farm-work. 

The plan commonly adopted in the prisons of utilizing the labor of 
the convicts is that of letting it to contractors; what work shall be 
given to contractors is settled by the administration. It has absolute 
control in the selection of prisoners for the performance of the work and 
over its execution. It is deemed important to have such a number and 
variety of trades that, in allotting prisoners their work, due regard may 
be had to their trades before admission and also to their capacity. Each 
particular branch of industrial labor is, by the regulations, given to one 
contractor; the system of “general contracts” has no existence in Prus¬ 
sia. The contracts are so made as to exclude all direct relation between 
the prisoner and the contractor. It is conceded that the state loses 
financially by this system, but is claimed that it simplifies the adminis¬ 
tration. 

About 5 per cent, of the inmates have knowledge of some trade on 
entry. As it is considered highly important for a prisoner during his 
imprisonment to learn how to help himself on his liberation, it is made 
a special object to teach him a trade, if he had not learned one before. 
In addition to school-instruction and apprenticeship to a trade, he is 
bound, in order to learn the art of self-help, to keep himself strictly 
clean, take due care of his clothes,- see to the cleanliness of his cell aud 
all utensils, and to the proper order of his bed. 

(4) Saxony, one of the most industrial countries, produces in her pris¬ 
ons almost all the different articles of industry and trade. The work is 
partly given to contractors, who are entirely dependent on the adminis¬ 
tration of the penitentiary, and is partly managed by the latter itself on 
its own account. The system of giving the work "to contractors, who 
are in entire dependence/on the administration, has the preference, be¬ 
cause, as it is thought, the officers cannot be at the same time good 


PRISON LABOR-GERMANY-ITALY-MEXICO, ETC. 71 

tradesmen and good officers, and because the interests of the two would 
be opposed and conflicting. The profits of the prisoners’ work cover 
from about one-third to one-half of all the prison expenses. 

(5) Besides the necessary work done for the prison itself, there are 
carried on in the prisons of Wurtemberg some fifteen to twenty different 
trades by the men, and eight or ten by the women. Both industrial sys¬ 
tems find place—that of letting the labor to contractors and that of 
directing it by the administration. The opinion is held that preference 
should be given to the one or the other, according to the nature of the 
work. 

More than half the prisoners, when received, have a knowledge of 
some trade. As far as possible, the prisoner is put at the same trade in 
prison at which he worked before, or he is taught some other, selected by 
himself, of those carried on in the prison. The same is true of those 
who had not learned a trade before their imprisonment. 

§ G. In the penitentiary system of Italy there is no labor bearing an 
exclusively penal character. It is sought to give to the industrial edu¬ 
cation of the prisoners the turn which seems best suited to them, and 
to impart the trade most easily mastered. Labor has no other aim in 
the Italian prisons than to overcome the natural propensity to idleness 
in the criminal, to accustom him to a life of activity and hardship, 
and to give him the means of obtaining an honorable livelihood. 

The industrial arts mostly practised in the penitentiaries are those of 
the shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith, and weaver, and in the bagnios 
the prisoners are made agriculturists, laborers in the salt-deposits, and 
workers in cotton, hemp, &c. Until 1868, the industries of the prisons 
were managed by the administration. Since that time, as an experi¬ 
ment, the contract-system has been introduced into eleven prisons. 
The question, Which is the best of these two systems? is so compli¬ 
cated and difficult that the administration is unwilling to pronounce 
an opinion till it has made further trial of each. 

§ 7. Penal labor does not exist in Mexico. The sentiment of the com¬ 
missioners who prepared the report for the congress is opposed to such 
labor, first, because it does not contribute to the moral improvement of 
the prisoners; and, secondly, because, to render it effectual, it would 
be necessary to use actual violence, which always humiliates and de¬ 
grades those who suffer it. 

The contract-system is not found in the prisons of Mexico. 

It is considered very important that during their confinement prisoners 
should learn some trade that may enable them to earn their livelihood, 
as the chief reason why they relapse into crime is that, after they have 
served their time, they do not find any work ; and the want of this re¬ 
duces them to misery and leads them to commit fresh offenses. 

§ 8. In the penitentiary establishments of the Netherlands unpro¬ 
ductive or merely penal labor is unknown. Industrial labor, the only 
kind in use, is everywhere directed by the administration. But both 
systems of labor, the contract-system and the system by which the labor 
is utilized on account of the state, have place. 

Taking the whole country together, it is believed that about one In 
four will correctly represent the proportion of prisoners without a trade 
at the time of commitment. It is regarded as a matter of the highest 
importance to impart to prisoners during their incarceration the power 
of self-help, and this result is diligently sought by teaching them, to 
the utmost extent possible, some useful calling. 

§ 9. Industrial labor alone is pursued in the prisons of Norway, and 
it is managed exclusively by the administration. Many prisoners learn 


72 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


a trade while in prison. Effort is made to train them to habits of in¬ 
dustry, and it is constantly set before them that, of all the causes of 
crime, idleness is one of the most prolific. 

§ 10. In Russia, a marked difference between different kinds of labor 
is beginning to show itself. Industrial work, which scarcely existed in 
times past, is now making great progress, owing to the advantages it 
offers to the prisoner, who sees that he can thereby best escape relapse. 
Penal labor alone cannot, it is held in Russia, have a beneficial influ¬ 
ence. This is clearly proved in Siberia, where the number of escapes is 
counted by thousands. An intense hatred of the authorities and a strong 
desire of vengeance are the result when penal is not accompanied by 
industrial labor, which latter is the sole means of reformation. Industrial 
labor has produced good results in Russia only when let to contractors. 
It is now a question whether penal labor shall not be let in the same way. 
It is held that the administration should not interfere with its direct 
duties by the care of commercial undertakings. 

A thoroughly organized bureau of statistics has but just been estab¬ 
lished by the ministry of justice. It is therefore impossible at present 
to give the exact proportion of prisoners who are without a trade when 
committed; but it is certainly more than one-half. To impart the 
knowledge of a trade to prisoner ignorant of such knowledge is a 
special point in the reforms now projected. To give him the power of 
self-help is regarded as of the very highest importance, since peniten¬ 
tiary science, in its whole scope and essence, is but a struggle against 
the tendency to relapse. 

§ 11. There is no penal labor in the prisons of Sweden as contradis¬ 
tinguished from that which is industrial. In the associate prisons for 
men, most of the prisoners are occupied in cutting granite for build¬ 
ings, for pavements, &c. In one prison a part of the inmates are en¬ 
gaged in cutting up pine-wood for matches, another part in making 
fine joiners’ work. In still other prisons, linen and woolen cloths and 
blankets are manufactured, as well as all the garments and bedding for 
the prisoners and a part of the clothing for the army. The women are 
engaged in making textile fabrics, in all sorts of sewing and binding, in 
glove-making, &c. In the cellular prisons various kinds of labor are per¬ 
formed by the men, such as tailoring, shoe-making, joiuers’ work, &c.; 
and by the women, weaving, sewing, knitting stockings, &c. Recently 
the manufacture of match-boxes has been their principal employment. 
Industrial labor has the effect to give the prisoners habits of order and 
diligence, and to render the violent more tractable. 

All the industrial labor in the associated prisons is let to contract¬ 
ors, except what is done for the prisons themselves. Nevertheless, the 
opinion is held that, to secure the best results in respect of moral 
reformation, all the industries should be under the direction and control 
of the prison administration itself, and not that of contractors. 

In Sweden the inhabitants of the towns form only 12 per cent, of the 
total population. In the country men are chiefly farm-laborers or 
miners. The consequence is that only a small proportion of prisoners 
had learned a trade prior to their committal—not more, indeed, than 10 
per cent. To put the prisoner in possession of a trade, by which he 
may earn an honest living after his release, special trade-masters, dur¬ 
ing recent years, have been employed to give the necessary instructions 
in the cellular prisons. Further measures in this direction will be 
adopted at an early day. It is in contemplation to grant the greater 
part of his earnings to every prisoner who, while in prison, has learned 


PRISON LABOR-NORWAY-PRUSSIA-SWEDEN, ETC. 73 

and worked at a trade capable of supporting him. It is believed that 
this plan will be effective in the reformation of numbers of criminals. 

§ 12. The distinction between penal and industrial labor is made in 
the Swiss prisons by law only in the cantons where there still exists the 
system of the old hard-labor prisons, in which a certain class of prisoners 
are subjected to public labor, viz, in sweeping the streets, making roads, 
diking rivers, &c. This distinction is not made in the prisons in which 
the reformation of the prisoner is proposed as the end. From twenty to 
thirty of the more common and more useful trades are taught in the 
Swis t s prisons. 

Industrial labor in the prisons of Switzerland is managed by the 
administration itself. The attempts which have been made in some 
prisons to let the labor to contractors for a fixed daily sum have been 
very speedily abandoned. Orders are received in the penitentiaries. 
The raw material is furnished by the administration or by those who 
order the work; the tools belong to the establishment. The keepers, 
who act at the same time as foremen, superintend the work and calcu¬ 
late the value of the workmanship and of the raw material employed. 
Account is taken in this calculation of the prices-current. Everywhere 
they endeavor to deliver merchandise carefully manufactured ; and thus, 
as a general thing, the industrial products of prisons are in good repute. 
Preference is given in the modern penitentiaries to the management of 
the administration over that of contractors in the interest of peniten¬ 
tiary training. The administration, being supreme, can introduce a 
greater variety of industries, and suit to these latter the different apti¬ 
tudes presented by the prisoners. The consequence of the distribution 
of the prisoners on a larger number of industries is that each branch is 
restricted to a relatively small number of workmen, and hence free labor 
has no occasion to fear an injurious competition. The endeavor is made 
to create a demand for the products of prison labor rather by the excel¬ 
lence and solidity of the manufacture than by the cheapness of the 
price. Were it otherwise, the penitentiaries, which ought to be at the 
same time industrial schools, would be turned aside from their proper 
end. In Switzerland it is found that penitentiary training is incom¬ 
patible with the system of letting the labor of the prisoners to contractors. 
It is the administration alone that can feel an interest in teaching a 
trade to every prisoner during his stay in prison, so that at the time of 
his liberation he may be independent and able to gain an honest living. 

The number of prisoners not having a regular business at the time 
of their commitment is relatively considerable. Nevertheless, the ten¬ 
dency is shown to be toward a diminution, if comparison is made between 
the results of statistics for the last twenty years in the penitentiary of 
St. Gall. This belongs evidently to the progress of civilization. 

Of criminals committed to the Swiss prisons, about 50 per cent, make 
no claim to have learned a trade; and, of the 50 per cent, who do so claim, 
there is scarcely a fourth part who can produce a respectable piece of 
workmanship. These facts clearly show that the want of a trade is not 
without its influence in the law which controls the causes of crime. 
Hence it is sought in all the penitentiaries—particularly in those more 
recently built and organized upon a rational plan—to give a trade to the 
prisoners, and above all to juvenile delinquents, who have to undergo 
an imprisonment of one or several years. In all the penitentiaries 
it has been remarked that numbers of the prisoners acquire in a 
short time the ability to do that which free workmen would be able to 
execute only after a long apprenticeship. Apprenticeship to a trade 
which requires a certain degree of intelligence, and is, at the same time, 


74 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


to the taste of the prisoner, is one of the principal agencies in reforming 
him. Without industrial-labor of this kind, no satisfactory result can 
be expected from a penitentiary system, and relapses will be inevitable. 
A trade learned in the establishment is held to be worth more, as re¬ 
gards the support and succor of the prisoners, than a patronage society. 
It is well understood in the cantons somewhat advanced in penitentiary 
science that it is important, in order to prevent relapses, not only to 
make the prisoner an able -workman, but also to teach him during his 
incarceration to help himself. In this view, there have been introduced 
in most of the prison regulations arrangements by which zeal and dili¬ 
gence in labor and the habit of saving are stimulated. The scale of the 
peculium rises in many of the establishments with the augmentation of 
labor. In the better organized penitentiaries the further effort is made 
to attain this result by a careful apprenticeship to the trade chosen by 
the prisoner, by making him acquainted with the nature of raw mate¬ 
rials, the places from which they are obtained, and their market value; 
also, with the tools and machines employed, the price-current of the 
articles manufactured, and the manner of calculating the value of 
the workmanship. The prisoners are more or less associated with 
the administration through their industrial labors. If by their good 
conduct and their aptitudes they come at length to deserve the 
necessary degree of confidence, they are called to fulfill the functions of 
foremen. There is thus afforded to every prisoner the opportunity of 
developing and manifesting his power of initiative. Technical works 
and journals are placed in the hands of the workmen on different 
branches of industry. Writings of the character of Franklin’s Poor 
Richard afford material assistance in this system of penitentiary educa¬ 
tion. 

§ 13. All the labor done in American prisons from which revenue is 
derived is of the kind known as industrial, in contradistinction from 
penal, which does not exist among us. But there is scarcely any kind 
of industrial labor which does not find a place in the prisons of the 
United States. In Alabama and Texas the convicts build railroads, in 
Mississippi they raise cotton, in Tennessee and New York they work 
mines; in many of the States they cultivate gardens or do farm-work. 
But the prison employments are generally mechanical, and especially 
deal with work in wood, leather, and the metals, though stone work is 
also done on a large scale where prisons are building. This was formerly 
so common an occupation for American convicts that “hammering 
stone” became a common term for imprisonment. Quarrying stone for sale 
or for making quicklime is much practised in the great prisons of Joliet 
(Illinois,) and Sing-Sing (New York,) the largest in the country. At 
the Auburn prison, agricultural tools are extensively manufactured ; in 
the Ohio state-prison many convicts are employed as saddlers, wheel¬ 
wrights, and blacksmiths ; in the cellular prison at Philadelphia, (the 
eastern penitentiary,) the employments, being pursued in the cells, are 
mainly sedentary, such as shoemaking, weaving, and the lighter kinds 
of wood-work; in Massachusetts ornamental iron-work, brushmaking, 
shoemaking, and sewing by means of the sewing-machine are common 
prison employments. In the Maine state-prison, the warden, being a 
carriage-maker, has introduced that brauch of industry; in the prison 
of Northern New York, at Dannemora, a great iron mine furnishes ore, 
which is smelted, forged, and wrought into nails by the convicts ; in the 
Michigan state-prison, at one time, tanning leather was largely prac¬ 
tised ; in the Detroit House of Correction chair-making has been tbe 


PRISON LABOR-UNITED STATES-ENGLAND-IRELAND. 75 


chief industry. In fact, there is scarcely any mechanical occupation 
that has not been carried on in some one or more of our prisons. 

In general, the labor of the convicts is hired by contractors at a fixed 
sum per day, and this varies from a few cents to something above a 
dollar a day, the highest contract wages being paid at the Massachusetts 
prison. In a few of the prisons, perhaps a tenth part of the whole 
number, the whole prison labor is managed by the prison administra¬ 
tion, and in nearly all some part of the labor is so managed, especially 
where the building or enlarging of the prison is going on. It requires 
great skill and business capacity in the head of a prison to manage its 
industries, and for this reason such management is extremely liable to 
failure. On the other hand, the contract system often introduces moral 
and financial corruption, injures discipline, and demoralizes the convicts. 

A few years ago the expenses of nearly all our state-prisons exceeded 
their earnings; but a change has been going on in this respect, and 
there is now fully a fourth part of them that earn more than they expend. 
Every one of the six New England States reports a profit from its state- 
prison, ranging from $20,000 a year in Massachusetts to $1,200 in 
Connecticut; and the excess of earnings over expenses in the six prisons 
(containing an average of some 1,100 convicts) was last year above 
$39,000. With a smaller number of convicts than this, Ohio shows an 
excess of earnings amounting to more than $10,000. Under skillful and 
honest management, all our state-prison convicts might perhaps earn 
their own support and $30 a year besides; but two-thirds of them, and 
perhaps three-fourths, fall far short of this. In the eastern peniten¬ 
tiary, of Philadelphia, with about 000 convicts, the annual deficit, in¬ 
cluding officers 7 salaries, is nearly $60,000, or $100 for each convict; in 
the three great prisons of New York it averages more than $50 for each 
convict; in Maryland it is about $30 for each convict, and so on. In the 
county and district prisons very few of the convicts support themselves 
by their labor, but the Boston House of Correction, the Rochester Peni¬ 
tentiary, the Albany Penitentiary and the Detroit House of Correction 
are self-sustaining, and the two last-named prisons earn each a consider¬ 
able surplus every year. The net cost of supporting all the prisons 
above their earnings must be nearly $3,000,000 a year for the whole 
country, since there are 38,000 prisoners, arid the average annual cost 
of each one above his earnings cannot well be less than $80. 

§ IP. Penal labor, except so far as oakum-picking may belong to that 
category, is not used in the convict-prisons of England. It has for 
many years been an established principle in English convict-prisons to 
endeavor to instil into the convicts habits of industry, to develop their 
intelligence by employing them on industrial labor, and to facilitate 
their entering the ranks of honest industry on their discharge, by giv¬ 
ing them facilities for acquiring a knowledge of trades. These objects 
are fortunately conducive to another very desirable result, viz., that of 
making the prisons self-supporting in v arious degrees; some of them 
doing an amount of labor the value of which more than covers the cost 
of their maintenance. 

The gross cost for maintaining the convict establishments in England 
during the financial year 1871 was £313,633, and in the same period 
the earnings of the convicts amounted to £228,244, or £22 19s. 4Jd. per 
head on the average number. The net cost of the prisons, after deduct¬ 
ing the value of the prisoners’ labor, amounts only to £85,389, or £8 10s. 
per head. 

The contract system is not in existence in the English convict-prisons, 
the industries being managed wholly by the administration. 


76 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


In tbe county and borough prisons, great prominence, as a rule, is 
given to penal labor, such as the tread-mill, crank, shot-drill, oakum¬ 
picking, stone-breaking, &c. In a few, industrial labor is well organized, 
and its products go far towards defraying the ordinary expenses of the 
establishments ; but in general the earnings of prison labor are exceed¬ 
ingly moderate. 

§ 3.5. The labor-system in the Irish convict prisons is substantially the 
same as that in the English prisons of the same class, except that at the 
intermediate prison at Lusk, to which there is nothing corresponding 
in the English convict system, the men are mostly engaged in farm- 
work. 


CHAPTER VII. 

SANITARY CONDITION OF PRISONS. 

§ 1. The system of drainage in the Austrian prisons leaves little to 
be desired. The water-supply is reported as always sufficient in quan¬ 
tity, and for the most part good in quality. In the southern provinces, 
during the hot season, as the water in many prisons is supplied from 
cisterns, it is not as good as might be wished. In such prisons a modi¬ 
cum of vinegar is supplied to the prisoners, to be mixed with the water. 
Most of the prisons are well ventilated. The cells are thoroughly 
cleansed and painted every year. The corridors are cleaned daily and 
the floors scrubbed with sand and water at least once a month. The 
cleansing and disinfecting of water-closets take place every day. Per¬ 
sonal cleanliness is rigorously exacted. The body linen is changed 
weekly and the bed linen monthly. The prisoners must take at least 
four baths a year. The collective prisons are furnished with portable 
water-closets; the cellular have in each cell a fixed closet, which stands 
under a ventilator reaching to the roof. The dormitories and cells are 
lighted by gas or oil, mostly the latter. The heating of the prisons is 
done partly by iron stoves, partly by hot air, with necessary precautions 
for keepiug a sufficient quantity of moisture in the atmosphere. The 
bedsteads are generally of wood; in some cases, however, of iron. 
The bed is of straw, with pillow of the same or of African forest hair; 
two sheets, and one or two blankets, according to the season. The bed 
for the sick is the same, but the linen is finer, and it has a cotton cover¬ 
let. Nine hours are given to sleep. The remaining fifteen are divided 
thus: Keligious services, one and one-half hours; meals, exercise, and 
rest, two and one-half hours; labor, ten and one-half to eleven hours; at¬ 
tendance at school, (which is taken out of the hours for labor for those 
who frequent the lessons,) two hours. Sick prisoners are placed in the 
infirmary or hospital, and cared for according to the doctor’s orders by 
nurses taken from among the prisoners who show themselves worthy of 
such confidence; but those prisoners who have only slight ailments are 
treated in their rooms or cells. Insane prisoners are taken to the public 
lunatic asylum. The diseases most frequent are those of the respira¬ 
tory and digestive organs and of the skin and cellular textures. The 
average number of sick during the years 1870 and 1871 did not vary 
much from G per cent. The death-rate in prisons for sentences ex¬ 
ceeding a year was 3J per cent., while in prisons to which the sen¬ 
tences were for less than a year, it scarcely exceeded one-half of one 
per cent. 

§ 2. The sanitary state of the Belgian prisons is reported good. The 



PRISON LABOR-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM 


77 


drains for waste-water and night-soil are cleansed every week by a 
strong current of water rushing through them, so that no emanations 
dangerous to health can ever issue therefrom. Water is furnished in. 
amplest supply and of good quality. 

The ventilation and heating of the cells are effected in the following 
manner : The apparatus for heating is placed in the cellar. The fire is 
made in the center of a double cylinder filled with water, which forms 
the boilers for its propulsion. From the upper part of each of these 
boilers two perpendicular pipes ascend into the principal ventilating 
conduits, and conduct the hot water directly into a special reservoir 
placed in the draught-chimney, appropriated to each apparatus. This res¬ 
ervoir is fed by six pipes, which traverse horizontally each range of 
cells, returning afterward, by the same passage, to the. principal appa¬ 
ratus. Two pipes, filled with hot water, thus pass into all the cells. 
They are placed in a horizontal conduit running along the floor, close 
to the exterior wall. These conduits, covered with a plate of perfo¬ 
rated irou, form for each cell a little reservoir of heat. /Thus the ca¬ 
loric is utilized just where its action is required, since it is precisely in 
the cells that it disengages itself, supplying each with an equal quan¬ 
tity. Its center of radiation is in the cell itself. Let us examine now the 
mode of introducing fresh air. This introduction is twofold. In the first 
place, there is inserted in the window a ventilator of 30 centimeters 
(about 12 inches) in height and 44 centimeters (equal to 17| inches) in 
breadth, through which the fresh air is introduced directly into the 
cell, without having come in contact with the heat-pipes. Secondly, at 
one of the extremities of the iron plate which covers the conduits from 
the hot-air furnace is left an opening, which allows the heat to circulate 
in the cells. The opposite side of the plate corresponds to an opening 
made in the thickness of the exterior wall, by which the pure air from 
outside penetrates into the reservoir, and so into the cells. A valve is 
fitted to this last opening, by which the prisoner can regulate the intro¬ 
duction of air, and by the same means can increase or diminish the 
heat of the cell. Let it be carefully noted that the reservoir of which 
we have just spoken, as well as the introduction of fresh air, is on a 
level with the floor. The vitiated air is drawn off by a conduit placed 
in the thickness of the wall on the opposite side from that on which air 
and heat enter. This conduit, at its upper extremity, leads into a great 
pipe, which runs horizontally under the roof, discharging its contents into 
a vertical chimney, at the bottom of which is situated the reservoir 
which receives the hot water of the furnace, whose smoke-pipe also tra¬ 
verses the chimney. This system of ventilation works naturally and 
without mechanism of any kind. An active ventilation incessantly pu¬ 
rifies the different parts of the penitentiary establishment, throughout 
which there is always diffused a fresh and agreeable atmosphere. A 
cleanliness the most minute is continually maintained. The daily clean¬ 
ing of the premises, the varnishing of the pavement of the cells by 
means of a special process, and the waxing of the floors and the pave¬ 
ments of the galleries have made it possible to give up washing with 
water, which is attended with great inconvenience. The walls of the 
cells, galleries, &c., are washed of a stone-color at the beginning of 
every year, and partially whenever it becomes necessary to remove 
spots or stains. No deposit of dirt or dung is allowed within the in¬ 
closure of the establishment, and all necessary measures are taken to 
have the rain-water speedily carried off from the premise^. In summer, 
fumigations are made every morning. They are less necessary in wintet, 
and are, consequently, less frequent during that season of the year. • J 


78 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


To insure personal cleanliness on the part of the prisoners the hair is 
required to be kept short ; whiskers, mustache, &c., are forbidden. 
The men are shaved twice each week. The prisoners are required to 
wash their feet once a week. Every two months in winter, and once a 
month in summer, they are required to take a full bath. The body linen 
is changed every week. 

As regards the arrangement of the water-closets, two good systems 
are in use—movable vessels and fixed seats, with a pressure ot water. 
The cells are lighted with gas ; two stop-cocks are fitted to the lighting 
apparatus—one in the cell, under the control of the prisoner; the other 
on the outside, under the control of the keeper. 

The use of the hammock has been given up, having been replaced in 
the cellular prisons by an iron table-bedstead. This bedstead is folded 
up during the day, contains the bedding, and serves as a table. The 
bedding consists of a mattress, a bolster, two cases for the mattress,, 
two bolster cases, two woolen blankets, and two pairs of sheets. The 
mattress and the bolster are made of sea weed. 

The infirmary occupies a part of the building at some distance from 
the cells, and the sick are distributed into spacious cells, w ell aired and 
comfortably warmed. These cells have a capacity of 40 cubic meters,, 
and are provided with the necessary furniture and with clothing suited 
to the condition of the sick. The dietary is regulated according to a 
special tariff. The hygienic service leaves nothing to be desired. A 
cleanliness the most minute, a ventilation active and continual, frequent 
fumigations, the change of linen and of bedding—in a word, all desira¬ 
ble attentions are accorded to the sick. Independently of the assidu¬ 
ous attentions of which the sick are made the object, they are regularly 
visited, at least once an hour, and can, at anytime, call upon the nurses- 
by means of a signal, whose movement reaches to each bed. Prisoners- 
seriously sick have watchers, and all the necessary measures are taken 
that they receive the attentions required by their situation. 

The proportion of the sick for all the prisons of the kingdom is 2.74 
per cent.; the average death-rate is 1.77 per cent. 

§3. The food given to the prisoners in the penitentiaries of Denmark 
is healthy, clean, and sufficient, but plain. Dinner is the principal 
meal. The prisons are dry and airy, and in no private house is greater 
cleanliness found. During the last three years, the proportion of sick 
prisoners has been : Men, 2.11 per cent; women, 2.13. During the same 
period, the death-rate on the total average number of prisoners was: 
Men, 1.75; women, 1.79. 

§ 4. The central administration of France attaches great importance 
to the hygiene of the prisons, and it takes special pains to free them 
from every cause of humidity. Even where the buildings which serve 
for imprisonment are not its own property, it reserves to itself an abso¬ 
lute right of control, as well as of preliminary approval, of all construc¬ 
tions and repairs appertaining to them. It has the power to insure,, 
and it does insure effectively, that sanitary precautions are never neg¬ 
lected. Water is supplied in abundance, and, for the most part, of 
excellent quality. The ventilation of the prisons is made the object of 
a very special attention, and is effected by means of draught-chimneys, 
which cause the miasms to escape and facilitate the renewal of the air. 
To insure cleanliness in the prison buildings, the regulations prescribe 
that the floors of the several stories, especially for apartments in com¬ 
mon, except the infirmary, be, as far as possible, covered with cement 
or stucco, in preference to flagging, tiles, or planks. The walls and 
ceilings are required to be carefully plastered and painted with oil, or 


PRISON HYGIENE-DENMARK-FRANCE-BADEN. 79 ’ 

at least washed with lime. These precautions, whose aim is to facili¬ 
tate the maintenance of cleanliness, are completed by official measures, 
whose daily or periodical exaction is placed in charge of the contractor 
of each establishment where the industries are managed by contract. 
These measures are specified in the contract. They consist principally 
in frequent and repeated sweepings, washings, and cleanings, as weil 
as in fumigations and in the annual whitewashing of all the buildings. 

The means of securing the personal cleanliness of tbe prisoners are 
of two kinds. The one, as the daily toilet, the bath, the washing of 
the feet, and the removal of the beard and long hair of the men, is ap¬ 
plied directly to the individual. The other has for its object the linen 
and the clothing provided for the prisoners’use. They are both as ex¬ 
tensive as possible, and are made the subject of numerous and detailed 
rules in the conditions of the contract and the regulations of the prisons. 
The position and structure of the water-closets are made a constant 
study of the administration, and improvements are gradually intro¬ 
duced wherever it is practicable. The prisons are generally lighted, 
with oil, though in some cases with gas. They are commonly heated 
by stoves ; some by hot-air furnaces; but these latter have not proved 
a great success. Iron bedsteads having been found preferable to all 
others, they are the only kind now purchased for the prisons of France. 
The old wooden bedsteads are fast disappearing, and will soon become 
a thing of the past. The complete bed of each able-bodied prisoner 
consists of an iron bedstead, a mattress or paillasse, (the former in all 
central prisons,) a bolster, two sheets, and one coverlet in summer and 
two in winter. The beds for the sick are larger and of better quality, 
and are provided each with a pillow and curtains. They have also both 
a mattress and a paillasse. As a general rule, twelve to thirteen hours 
are given to labor, (the number cannot exceed that exacted of free la¬ 
borers ;) two to two and one-half to meals and exercise in the open air; 
and nine to sleep. In the great prisons sick prisoners are treated in 
the establishment, whatever may be the nature or gravity of their dis¬ 
ease. In the minor departmental establishments, the trivial cases are 
treated in the prison itself; the more serious ones, in the hospital of 
the place where they are situated. The sanitary system of the central 
prisons is organized in a manner the most complete. A physician, often 
resident in the establishment, is attached to each. The infirmaries are 
arranged in the best possible manner. A special dietary is accorded to 
the sick, agreeably to the prescriptions of the physician and the condi¬ 
tions of the contract. A dispensary, provided with all necessary medi¬ 
cines, is organized in each central prison, and an apothecary is charged 
with preparing the prescriptions. Affections of the digestive and res¬ 
piratory organs and fevers furnish half—often two-thirds—of the in¬ 
mates in the prison-hospitals. Imprisonment very generally produces 
a lack of blood, which favors the development or increases the gravity 
of certain diseases, such as consumption and scrofula. The average 
number of prisoners in the hospitals of the central prisons was, in 1868, 
4 per cent, of men and 5 of women. The average death-rate in the 
same class of prisons in the same year was : Men 3.65 per cent. ; women, 
3.80. 

§ 5. The five German states represented in the congress reply as fol¬ 
lows : 

(1) The prisons of Baden are represented as healthy, being commonly 
built ou a dry soil; but they have no special system of sewerage. 
Water is furnished in sufficient quantity and of good quality. The ven¬ 
tilation is reported good. The cells and corridors are cleaned daily.. 


80 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Scrupulous attention is everywhere given to cleanliness, insomuch that 
trades inconsistent with it are not practised. The prisoners have always 
a full supply of water in their cells. On entrance, each prisoner is 
washed in his whole person and has his hair cut. The daily ablution 
of hands and face is required, and every one must have twelve foot- 
baths and four baths of the entire person per year. They have clean 
linen weekly, and their outer garments and bed-clothes are washed as 
often as may be found necessary. They are shaved every week, and 
their hair is cut as often as needful. They must wash all vessels imme¬ 
diately after using them, and the floors of their cells are scrubbed at 
least once every week. The cells are lighted with gas. The prisons are 
heated in a variety of ways: by hot air, by steam, or by stoves of iron or 
earthenware. Each prisoner lias a wooden or iron bedstead; a mattress, 
of straw, sedge, or varec; a bolster, of the latter substance ; two sheets; 
and one or two counterpanes. The sick have, in addition, cushions, &c. 
The general distribution of time, without minute accuracy, is ten hours 
for work, nine and one-half for sleep, and the remaining four and one-half 
for meals, exercise, religious services, and school. The sick are cared 
for in special cells, or in common hospitals when their complaints are 
serious enough to require it. The most common diseases are those of 
the stomach, scrofula, and the maladies consequent thereupon. An aver¬ 
age of (say) 5 per cent, of the prisoners are under the doctor’s care, 
and the death-rate ranges from 1 to 2 per cent. 

(2) Bavaria does not claim a good system of sewerage for all her pris¬ 
ons, but in those of recent construction great attention has been paid 
to this matter. The prisoners receive, three times a day, fresh water, 
generally of a good quality, for drinking and washing. The prison- 
rooms are, for the most part, well ventilated by windows. Other systems 
have not been found very successful. Work-rooms, sleeping-rooms, and 
corridors are swept daily, washed weekly, and painted yearly. Prison¬ 
ers must wash the face and hands, clean the mouth, and comb the hair 
every morning; must take a foot-bath each week or fortnight, and a 
full bath several times in the year; and must be shaved once a week, 
and have their hair cut when necessary. Different kinds of water-closets 
are used. In the cellular prison at N urn berg there are fixed closets 
made of cast-iron, which, by means of water-pipes, are cleaned three 
times every day; the bend or neck which connects the closet with the 
refuse-pipe remains always full of water, and thereby shuts off all sewer- 
gas. By means of the water all the matter is carried off, and falls into 
a reservoir at some distance, whence again the liquid part is drained off 
into a stream. This arrangement works well. In some other prisons, 
however, the arrangements are far from perfect, especially where during 
the night movable closets are put into the bed-rooms. Hot air, hot 
wmter, and stoves are the several modes of heating the prisons. The 
bed consists of: a bedstead of wood or iron, a straw mattress with a 
tick of unbleached coarse linen, a pillow of the same material, two 
sheets, a blanket of good sheep’s wool, and in winter two. The most 
frequent forms of disease are those belonging to the respiratory and 
digestive organs. Four per cent, represents the average of the sick 
and 2 per cent, the average death-rate. 

(3) In Prussia the greatest care is taken to secure a good system of 
sewerage for the prisons. Everywhere an abundance of water is sup¬ 
plied, and in the majority of prisons it is of good quality. All prisons 
built within the last forty years have been furnished with an effective 
system of artificial ventilation, which is generally connected with the 
heating-apparatus. The prisons are kept scrupulously clean, and, as far 


PRISON HYGIENE-BAVARIA-PRUSSIA-SAXONY, ETC. 81 

as possible, free from vermin. As regards the means of securing the 
personal cleanliness of the prisoners, nothing is left to be desired. Be¬ 
sides daily ablutions, rigorously enforced, the upper part of the body 
and the feet must be washed every Sunday and the whole person at 
least once a month. Considerable variety shows itself in the water- 
closet arrangements. This part of the service does not appear to be in 
a perfectly satisfactory condition. The lighting of the prisons is by 
gas, petroleum, or oil; in the common dormitories lights are kept burn¬ 
ing all night. The prisons of recent construction are heated by hot- 
water apparatus. The bedsteads are of wood or iron ; the latter in all 
modern prisons. The bedding consists of a straw paillasse and pillow, 
sheets, and from one to three woolen counterpanes, according ro the 
season, inclosed in a white or colored case of linen or calico. The in¬ 
firmaries are supplied with hair-mattresses. The hours of labor are 
from 5 or 6 a. m. (according to the season) to 8 p. m., but subject to va¬ 
rious interruptions for meals, rest, exercise, school, and catechising. 
The hours of sleep are from 8 p. m. to 5 or 6 a. m. Hospitals are 
found in all the prisons, and are fitted up with everything needed for 
the treatment of the sick in the best manner. Light cases are treated 
in the ordinary rooms. The diseases most common are pulmonary, in¬ 
testinal, and other forms of consumption; renal, dropsical, cerebral, and 
spinal affections; and chronic ailments of the abdominal organs. 
Eight per cent, of the prisoners are usually under medical treatment— 
half in the hospitals and half in their cells or rooms. The death-rate 
is from 2 to 2J per cent, on the average number of prisoners. 

(4) In Saxony, from the combined results of science and experience, 
prisoners have received, since 1851, conformably to a regulation regard¬ 
ing mealsj sufficient and nourishing food. This regulation provides for 
a daily variety suited to the season and the promotion of health. For 
dinners there are ninety, for breakfasts and suppers, twenty-eight, vari¬ 
eties of dishes. On principle, such food is given to the prisoner as is 
required for the preservation of his life, health, and strength for work. 
Requisite medical attention in every respect is given to the prisoners. 
The ventilation is arranged in a simple but effective manner. Drainage 
(in a technical sense) does not exist, but a system of sluices removes all 
the underground water. To cleanliness the most strict attention is paid, 
and it is rigorously insisted 1 on in workshops, dormitories, water-closets, 
and clothing; there is also a regular use of baths. The daily average 
of cases of illness is from 1 to 2 per cent.; the annual average of cases 
of death is 1 to 3 per cent. 

(5) The prisons of Wiirtemberg are provided with a good system of 
sewerage. Water, for drinking and other purposes, is found in all the 
prisons in sufficient quantity and of good quality. Prisoners are re¬ 
quired to keep their persons, clothing, beds, worksops, dormitories, 
and all other places about the prisons scrupulously clean. Frequent 
bathing of the entire person is exacted. The food provided for the 
prisoners is of good quality and sufficient in quantity. The construc¬ 
tion of the water-closets varies with the construction of the prisons; 
but even the ordinary ones are supplied with a ventilating apparatus 
for removing the bad air, and are carefully disinfected. Most of the 
prisons are lighted with gas. The bedsteads are of iron or wood. 
The bed consists of a straw mattress and bolster, two sheets, one 
blanket in summer, and two in winter. In reclusion-prisons the 
inmates whose health requires it may have their own beds, and in 
the prisons for preliminary detention there is no restriction in this 
regard. In prisons of reclusion the hours of work are eleven j of 

H. Ex. 185-6 



82 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


‘sleep, nine. The remaining four, hours are given to meals, recreation, 
schooling, &c. All the prisons have infirmaries, which are supplied 
with everything necessary for the sick 5 but prisoners who are only 
slightly indisposed are treated elsewhere. The diseased in mind are 
removed to a lunatic asylum. The average proportion of sick in the 
infirmaries for the last ten years has been from 3J to 4£ per cent., and 
the death-rate from 1 J to 2 | per cent. The diseases are mostly the 
same as those which prevail among the free population. 

§ G. The allowance of food in the Italian prisons varies according to 
the class of the prison. In the detention-houses the ration is 1 bowl of 
soup and 750 grams (1J pounds) of bread; in the penitentiaries, the 
same quantity of bread and two bowls of soup; in the bagnios, the same 
ration of bread and one bowl of soup, with the addition of a portion 01 
meat once a fortnight. In the detention-prisons the prisoners are allowed 
to.procure their own food if so disposed. I 11 penal establishments worked 
by contract, and in the bagnios, the prisoners are allowed to use a por¬ 
tion of their peculinm in increasing their diet, as they choose. In pen¬ 
itentiaries worked by the government the convict who accomplishes 
within a month a certain amount of work enjoys the next month what 
is called the u laborer’s diet,” and if he accomplish an extra quantity 
he enjoys what is named the 11 reward diet.” The laborer’s diet is a 
daily dish added to the ordinary ration. The reward diet adds to this 
an allowance of wine (vin ordinaire) three times a week. In the old pris¬ 
ons ventilation is provided for as best it may be. In the new construc¬ 
tions the best appliances of science are employed. The water-closets 
are made movable or fixed, according to the quantity of water necessary 
to prevent unhealthy effluvia. The average death-rate in 1870, as com¬ 
pared with the average prison-population, was: I 11 the houses'of deten¬ 
tion, 2.97 per cent, of males and 1.77 per cent, of females; in the pen¬ 
itentiaries it was 5.09 per cent, of men and 3.41 per cent, of women; and 
in the bagnios, where only men are admitted, 2.78 per cent. The diseases 
most common in the bagnios are fevers and complaints of the lungs and 
nervous system; in the penitentiaries, diseases of the lungs and of the 
organs of sense. 

§ 7. No information was furnished on this subject in the report from 
Mexico, further than the bare statement that it is unnecessary to warm 
the prisons of that country artificially, on account of the mildness of 
the climate. 

§ 8 . In some of the prisons of the Netherlands, the system of sewerage 
still remains imperfect, but reforms are sought to be everywhere intro¬ 
duced. The quantity of water supplied to the prisoners is without limit, 
and the quality is generally good, but in some localities it is difficult and 
expensive to procure it. Most of the prisons are well ventilated ; where 
improvements are still needed, means are employed to accomplish them. 
Earnest endeavors are everywhere made to insure the cleanliness of the 
prisons, and for the most part with satisfactory results. The same is 
true as regards the personal cleanliness of the prisoners. As regards 
the system of water-closets, preference is generally given to inodorous, 
portable vessels, with a reservoir outside of the building. The prisons 
are commonly lighted by gas or petroleum. Lights are kept burning in 
the dormitories during the night. The system of heating varies in dif¬ 
ferent prisons. In some it is effected by hot water or steam, in others by 
stoves. The prisoner’s bed is made of straw; for the sick, of sea-grass 
or sea weed. Hammocks were formerly in very general use, but by 
degrees they have been replaced by open bedsteads. The bed, complete, 
consists of a mattress and bolster, two sheets, one coverlet of a coarse 


PRISON HYGIENE-ITALY-NETHERLANDS-NORWAY, ETC. 83 

material, and one or two blankets, according to the temperature of the 
season. 

There is no general rule regarding the distribution of time. The 
hours of labor (including those of school) are ten in summer and nine 
in winter, and, of sleep, eight and a half in summer and nine in winter. 
The remainder of the time is at the disposal of the prisoner for meals, 
rest, study, and reading. 

A distinct part of the prison-building serves as an infirmary. In the 
cellular prisons, cells of double dimensions are appropriated to the sick. 
The medical service is confined to a military surgeou wherever there is 
a garrison; to a civil physician in localities where there is no garrison. 
The entire service is under the inspector-general of the medical service 
of the army, and is performed in a highly satisfactory manner. The 
most common diseases in the prisons, as outside, are diseases of the 
chest, especially phthisis. The average of the sick and of deaths it is not 
easy to give. It differs a good deal in different prisons, depending on 
local circumstances and the class or species of prison. The difference 
in the duration of punishments, which is by no means inconsiderable, 
exercises a great influence on the proportionate number of the sick and 
of deaths. 

§ 9. A good system of drainage is reported for the Norwegian prisons. 
The water-supply is unlimited and of good quality. The ventilation of 
the prisons is reported good. Cleanliness, both of the prisons and 
prisoners, is enforced to the utmost practicable extent. The larger 
prisons are lighted with gas; the smaller with oil. In the penitentiary 
and most of the district-prisons the rooms are warmed by hot water; in 
the other district-prisons by stoves. In the penitentiary, hammocks are 
used; in ‘the other penal establishments, wooden bed-frames; in the 
district-prisons, both sorts. The bedding consists of mattress, pillow, 
sheets, and blankets. The working-time cannot legally exceed fourteen 
hours in summer and ten in winter. The actual time employed in 
labor is less, varying from twelve and a half hours, as the maximum, to 
ten, as the minimum. The hours of sleep are not stated in the report. 
Every penal establishment has its own physician. In the district-prisons 
medical assistance is given by the official physician of the district. 

§ 10. In the new prison-constructions of Russia, in spite of the diffi¬ 
culties offered by the climate, the greatest pains are taken to secure 
good and effective drainage. In the old prisons, everything connected 
with this subject is in a more or less barbarous state. The same thing 
is true as regards ventilation. The water-closets are generally primi¬ 
tive. Those used during the day are simply perforated planks above a 
pit more or less deep ; for use by night there are portable vessels of 
wood. Efforts are now making to find a method which will unite 
economy, cleanliness, and pure air in a severe climate; but the problem 
is not easy of .solution. The prisons are lighted almost everywhere by 
tallow candles. They are warmed, for the most part, by stoves. In ex¬ 
ceptional prisons the system of Amossoff is employed. In this system, 
tubes for conducting heat unite at a common subterranean furnace or 
fire-grate. Other systems have been also tried, but none has yet given 
a satisfactory solution of the difficulty as respects cheapness, climate, 
security, and other desirable advantages. 

In most prisons the prisoners have no bed. They sleep on planks, 
ranged side by side, and fixed on stools about three feet from the floor. 
The bed, in prisons where it is found, is the same as everywhere else: a 
mattress and bolster filled with straw, linen sheets, and a coarse cloth 
blanket. The large prisons have hospitals in which the sick are treated, 


84 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


and which are well kept. The more common diseases are scurvy and 
consumption. There is not a large proportion of sick prisoners. The 
same cannot be said of the number of deaths. This fact is explained 
by the kind of life that the prisoners lead before their imprisonment; 
they had been too much addicted to alcoholic stimulants. 

§ 11. The situation and drainage of the prisons of Sweden leave little 
to be desired. It is quite common to build them on water-courses. The 
water for the prisoners’ use is of good quality and the supply without 
stint. In the associated prisons there is no apparatus for ventilation ; 
in those on the cellular plan it is otherwise. The strictest cleanliness 
is enforced. The prisoner, on his admission, has a bath and receives 
clean clothes. He changes his linen weekly and his sheets every fort¬ 
night. Frequent bathing is required, especially in summer. Water- 
closets are variously constructed, but they are not completely satisfac¬ 
tory. Gas is exceptionally used for lighting, oil and petroleum being 
commonly employed for that purpose. The larger cellular prisons are 
heated by hot water; the others, both cellular and associated, by open 
grates or stoves. The bedsteads are generally of iron in the associate 
prisons ; in the cellular, hammocks are used. The bedding does not 
differ materially from that supplied in the prisons of other European 
countries. In winter the hours for sleep are from 8 p. m. to 6 a. m.; in 
summer from 9 p. m. to 5 a. m. Each morning and evening, half an 
hour is occupied in washing, in prayer, and in inspection by the officers. 
Half an hour is allowed for breakfast, the same for supper, and an hour 
for dinner. On Saturday work finishes at 4 o’clock. In winter those 
who labor in the open air work as long as it is light. The prisoners in 
cells walk for half an hour each day in the court of the prison. They 
work at most ten hours per day; the remainder of their time is spent 
in reading and receiving instruction. 

In the cellular prisons the sick are commonly attended to in their 
cells; but they have a bed instead of the usual hammock. In serious 
cases, or in epidemics, the sick are transferred to a special room which 
is found in every cellular prison. In prisons on the associated system 
there are infirmaries with spacious and well-ventilated rooms, to which 
all prisoners are removed who, from sickness or wounds, are unable to 
work. No prisoner on the sick-list is allowed to remain in the work¬ 
rooms or in the common dormitories. The most common diseases are 
pulmonary consumption, affections of the stomach and intestines, 
especially among prisoners who work in the open air. During summer 
scurvy not unfrequently prevails. For five years the average of sick 
has been, in collective prisons, 4.4 per cent.; in cellular prisons, 4 per 
cent. In the same period the deaths were, in the collective prisons, 3 
per cent.; in cellular prisons, 2 per cent. 

§ 12. In the more recently constructed prisons of Switzerland and in 
those which have undergone extensive alterations, the sanitary appli¬ 
ances are such as the best experience and the best science suggest in 
regard to drainage, water-supply, ventilation, cleanliness, construction 
and arrangement of water-closets, heating, lighting, beds and bedding, 
hospital accommodation, &c. In the others, deficiencies are found in 
all these respects, varying from an approach to what humanity and sound 
policy demand to the absence of almost everything which these good 
guides point out as desirable. 

§ 13. There is no general scale of prison dietaries in the United States, 
and from the diversities of climate and production there could scarcely 
be one; for what would be salutary at Boston might be otherwise at 
New Orleans or Charleston, In the Western States fresh meat is much 


PRISON HYGIENE-SWEDEN-SWITZERLAND, ETC. 85* 

more freely used than on the sea-board^ but in all our prisons meat is 
much more common than in those of Europe, being generally given 
twice a day in the state-prisons. Another frequent article of food is 
Indian meal, made from maize, and served up in the form of “ mush,” 
(which is a kind of pudding,) or of “ brown bread.” This is little used 
in Europe, and is not to be highly recommended as a common article of 
diet. 

The ventilation and drainage of half the American prisons are reason¬ 
ably good; of the other half indifferent or bad ; in many instances very 
bad. Probably one-fourth of all the prisons, and a larger proportion of 
the state-prisons and houses of correction, are kept scrupulously clean ; 
a great many, particularly among the county jails, are foul and filthy. 
Yet most of them are free from sickness, and the death-rate is not 
large. It cannot be given with any accuracy, however, for lack of care¬ 
ful statistics. In the cellular prison of Philadelphia, during a period of 
forty-two years, there were 353 deaths in a total number of G,410 per¬ 
sons. As each person probably s$ent about three years in prison 011 an 
average, this would give a death-rate of 353 in 20,000, or 17.65 in a 
thousand, less than per cent., which is not very great. Among an 
average number of 2,471 prisoners in Massachusetts in 1868, 44 died ; in 
1869 the average number was 3,043, and the deaths were 55 5 in 1870 
these numbers were 2,971 and 58 ; in 1871, 3,145 and 68 . In an aggre¬ 
gate average population of 11,630 this gives 19.35 for the annual death-* 
rate per thousand in four years, which, all things considered, is less 
than in Pennsylvania. H 

§ 14. The sanitary arrangements and condition of the Euglish con¬ 
vict-prisons are reported as good. Iso epidemic or other diseases pre¬ 
vail in these establishments. They are kept in a high state of cleanli¬ 
ness, and the medical officers are required to examine and report fre¬ 
quently on this point. The average death-rate for the last five years 
has been 1.37 per cent, for males and 1.45 for females. 

In regard to the county and borough prisons the same report sub¬ 
stantially was presented to the congress by the government inspectors. 

§ 15. The sanitary arrangements in the Irish convict-prisons are re¬ 
ported as excellent, and the condition of the prisons in this regard as 
altogether satisfactory. The diseases most prevalent are' colds and 
mild febrile and pulmonary affections. 


CHAPTER Y I I I. 

REFORMATORY RESULTS. 

§ 1. Public punishment has two objects in Austria : the vindication 
of justice and the reformation of the criminal. The sad fact is ac¬ 
knowledged that the efforts for the moral improvement of prisoners have 
not been attended with good effect. No proofs exist that prisoners are 
made better by their punishment. The proportion of those who relapsed 
and were re convicted during the years x868-’70 was: Men, 59 per cent.; 
women, 54 per cent. 

§ 2. The execution of punishment in Belgium has in view the double 
aim of expiation and reformation; the latter of these objects is steadily 
kept in view and earnestly sought by the administration. It is claimed 
to be in proof that in the cellular prisons the moral state of the prison¬ 
ers is, in general, better at the time of their discharge than at that of 



86 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


tlieir entrance. Those who manifest evil inclinations are few in num¬ 
ber; nearly all have sensibly modified the sentiments with which they 
were animated at the time of their commitment. Still it would seem 
that the good resolutions formed in prison yield, to a very great extent, 
to the temptations to which the liberated prisoners are afterward ex¬ 
posed in free life. Of the prisoners committed in 1872, 78 per cent, had 
been in prison before, and had fallen again after their discharge. The 
authors of the report made to the congress claim that this result can¬ 
not be charged to the cellular system, since nearly half the penitentiary 
establishments are still conducted on the congregate plan. 

§3. The reformation of criminals is made a primary object of their 
treatment in Denmark, but though the convict generally leaves the 
prison with good intentions, yet his power of resistance often proves too 
weak to conquer temptation. 

§ 4. The supreme aim of public punishment in France is deterrence, 
that is to say, the intimidation of criminals, and the repression of crime 
by that means. The moral regeneration of the convicts is considered as 
one of the means of action which the state can and ought to employ to 
diminish the danger of relapse, but not as the principal aim of the pen¬ 
itentiary system. In the case of prisoners sentenced to short terms of 
imprisonment it is difficult to obtain favorable reformatory results. On 
the contrary, the criminal so imprisoned is apt to become sensibly de¬ 
teriorated. In support of this view, the report states that in France 
the proportion of relapses is in inverse ratio to the duration of the pun¬ 
ishment. According to the last official report on criminal justice, of 
persons prosecuted for crime, those previously convicted formed 42 J per 
cent., and of misdemeanants, 374 per cent. 

§ 5. The states of the German Empire reporting show the following 
condition of things: 

(1) Punishment is the primary aim of imprisonment in Baden, but it 
is intended to be so inflicted as to make it contribute to the reformation 
of the imprisoned. Those who leave the prison are generally better 
than when they entered it. The proportion of those who return to a 
criminal course after release is 20 per cent. 

(2) In Bavaria, although reformation is looked upon as one great ob¬ 
ject of the‘prison system, the favorable results desired are not, upon the 
whole, obtained. The proportion of re-convictions is about 30 per cent. 

(3) The principal aim in Prussian prisons is to satisfy justice, and to 
make the prisoners feel their punishment as an expiation of their crime. 
At the same time, all suitable means are employed to effect their moral 
reformation. Efforts are made to give them habits of order and work, 
and their minds are influenced by scholastic instruction, spiritual conso¬ 
lation, and moral precepts. Nevertheless, of prisoners sentenced to hard 
labor, the only class with respect to which reliable statistics exist, 60 to 
70 per cent, in the whole kingdom are recidivists, that is, persons who, 
after their liberation, have again fallen into crime. 

(4) In Saxony reformation is made one of the chief objects of im¬ 
prisonment. The prisoners are in general better on leaving the prison 
than when they entered it. Their promises that they will live honestly 
are, in most cases, not mere empty phrases; and when some have 
failed in their purpose of amendment, the fault is mostly to be traced 
to existing general social evils. For successful warfare against these, 
liberated prisoners are wanting in energy. 

(5) The primary object of imprisonment in Wtirtemberg is punish¬ 
ment; yet it is intended that the punishment shall be so administered 
as to effect the moral improvement of the prisoners. Of the inmates 


REFORMATORY RESULTS-ITALY-MEXICO-HOLLAND, ETC. 87 

of the prisons, more than a third—about 3G per cent.—are there on re¬ 
conviction. 

§ G. The administration of the Italian prisons finds it a-difficult task 
to decide the question whether its penitentiary system answers the end 
of reforming the criminal, and whether on discharge the prisoner is 
morally better or worse. The relapses into crime scarcely exceed 18 per 
cent, on the whole body of criminals; but, in 1871, of the criminals 
sentenced to an imprisonment of more than a year, 28 per cent, were 
recidivists. Ooncerningjthe number of re-convictions, a most important 
fact may be gathered from the registered statistics of the administra¬ 
tion relative to the time elapsing between the discharge and the com¬ 
mittal of fresh crime. From these it is found that of recidivists sentenced 
to the bagnios, 27 per cent, relapse within the first year, 1G per cent, 
within the first two years, and 57 per cent, beyond that space of time. 
The re-convictions of those sentenced to the penitentiaries are 37 per 
cent, within the first year, 19 per cent, within two years, and 41 per 
cent, beyond that lapse of time*; and among the females, 46 per cent, 
within the first year, 1G per cent, within two years, and 38 per cent, be¬ 
yond that time. 

§ 7. Deterrence has been considered in Mexico the primary aim of 
public punishment, though the moral reform of the criminal has not been 
lost sight of So far, the prisoners leave their prison-house in a worse 
state morally than when they entered it; but it is believed that the 
changes recently made in the penal code will improve this state of things. 

§ 8. The aim in the Netherlands is to make the punishment contribute, 
as far as possible, to the reformation of prisoners. The proportion of 
recidivists given by the (admitted) imperfect statistics of the country is, 
for the general mass of prisons, 25 per cent.; for the central (higher) 
prisons, 38 per cent. 

§ 9. Protection of society by deterring from crime, that is, by intimi¬ 
dation, is regarded in Norway as the primary end of prisons and im¬ 
prisonment ; but the reformation of the prisoners is also considered a 
chief point. Of the inmates of the penitentiary, about 39 per cent, are 
there on re-conviction. With regard to other prisons, no information is 
given in the report. Whether the prisons have an improving or deteri¬ 
orating effect upon their inmates is a question declared to* be difficult 
to answer in a satisfactory manner. 

§ 10. In Russia, the declared aim of all penal legislation is the reforma¬ 
tion of the inmates of the prisons; but this aim is very far from having 
been attained. Indeed, the prisoners are admitted to be worse on their 
discharge than on their entry, since the liberated are a pest to the coun¬ 
try. It is impossible to state the proportion of recommitments, for the 
want of statistics. 

§ 11. The information furnished by Sweden on this subject is given in 
the words of the report, as follows: 

The legislation, as well as the reform of prisons, initiated by King Oscar I, com¬ 
menced in 1840. In consqueuce, thirty-eight new eellular prisons were built in all the 
provinces of the kingdom. They have all aimed at the moral reformation of the pris¬ 
oners. But as all those who are sentenced to penal labor for more than two years are 
imprisoned in the large collective prisons with common dormitories for a large number 
of prisoners, and as they work altogether during the day for private contractors, their 
amendment has not been fully attained. On the other hand, the cellular prisons are 
regarded as not having corrupted the prisoners. Those who have been imprisoned 
only in cellular prisons have not been greatly hindered by their imprisonment from 
finding employment in the neighborhood of their home. During the last five years the 
number of recidivists has risen on the average to 28 per cent. But since Sweden suf¬ 
fered from scarcity of food in 1868, 1867, and 1868, and consequently it was difficult for 
men to find work, an extraordinary addition was made to the number of crimes against 


88 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


property. Hence the percentage of recidivists, before mentioned, is considerably above 
the normal average. 

§ 12. For Switzerland, tlie exact words of the report are also given: 

The study of social questions, undertaken by numerous societies of public utility, 
and the reports presented in the meetings of the Swiss Society for the Reform of the 
Penal System and of Prison Discipline, have enlightened public opinion to such a degree 
that the legislative assemblies of most of the cantons are favorable to the propositions 
made with a view to the introduction of penitentiary reform into all our prisons. On 
the other hand, public opinion declares itself in favor of expenditures designed to im¬ 
prove the condition of criminals only after the state has supplied the country with hos¬ 
pitals, insane-asylums, orphan-houses, schools, &c., that is to say, with all needful 
establishments designed for the honest poor. In all the cantons where these institutions 
are found, the old theory of penal repression, based on vengeance, has given place to 
more humane ideas, the responsibility resting on society as regards the causes of crimes 
is better understood, and the system introduced into most of the prisons has for its aim 
the reformation of the prisoners. It is true that the penal codes of many of the can¬ 
tons are based on punishment, intimidation, and expiation. But despite the text of 
the codes, which was often written prior to .the reform of the prisons, it is sought in 
the penitentiaries to employ agencies which may combine at once repression and refor¬ 
mation. While in some cantons (those of the two inferior groups) the principle of 
repression is alone admitted, we see the canton of Zurich setting a good example by 
declaring, in its penal code, October, 1870, that the application of punishment ought 
positively to have for its object the reformation of the criminal. This principle, which, 
some day, will be applied in its whole length and breadth, dates only from yesterday. 
Hence we need not be surprised that the country is found in that transitional period 
when the principle of intimidation still struggles against the moral reform of crim¬ 
inals. The spirit of vengeance is not entirely extinguished; it still shows itself when¬ 
ever any atrocious crime has just been committed. But the moment of indignation is 
transient, which shows that an immense progress has already been realized, and that 
its development proceeds without cessation, in spite of occasional reactionary move¬ 
ments. 

The favorable results obtained in the moral reformation of prisoners subjected to 
the penitentiary regime of the modern establishments incite the others to a revision of 
their penal codes. No doubt there are many criminals and correctionals in whose case 
the influence of the improved penitentiary system does not make itself felt. As, among 
the insane, there are incurable patients, so persons in whom the moral sense has been r 
completely perverted suffer themselves to be impressed in a penitentiary only, by the 
evil which they find there, and show themselves insensible to the good which is sought 
to be accomplished. On the other hand, the greater number are far from being de¬ 
praved, and the moral force of those who form this class increases in the prisons. At 
the moment of their liberation they feel themselves reconciled to society, and they have 
the firm intention of regaining, by their good conduct and by honest toil, the esteem of 
their fellow-citizens. But it is not easy for a prisoner to carry into effect his good reso¬ 
lutions. He has to confront many predjudices, to conquer many obstacles, and to 
resist many temptations, to which he would sometimes succumb if some charitable 
hand were not extended for his succor. 

The proportional number of recidivists can be given only approximately. The sta¬ 
tistics in the different cantons are not made out in a uniform manner. In some estab- 
l ishments, account is made of all private sentences—police, correctional, and criminal; 
in others, they embrace only those which have been pronounced within the canton or 
even notice only the punishments undergone in the same establishment. The greater 
parr of the cantons expel from their territory liberated prisoners of foreign birth, and 
give themselves no further trouble about them; so that it may happen that the cantons 
whose penitentiaries contain numerous non-residents of the canton may have fewer 
recidivists to be registered. In spite of the defective state of the statistics, we may 
estimate an average of 30 to 45 per cent, as the proportion of recidivists in cantons 
where the penitentiary system has made least progress, and from 19 to 25 per cent, as 
that of the cantons whose penitentiaries are well organized. 

§ 13. In very few of the prisons of the United States, taking those of 
all classes into account, is the reformation of criminals now made the 
primary object, and, as a matter of fact, numbers of prisoners leave the 
prison no better than they entered it. Many are made worse rather than 
better; and this is particularly the case in the county jails and with 
short sentenced prisoners in the district prisons. In our best prisons 
this is otherwise; but there are very few' officers who can truly say that 
their prison discipline has reformed the convicts. Any statements made 


PRISON OFFICERS-AUSTRIA-BELGIUM-DENMARK, ETC. 89 

regarding the proportion of re-convicted criminals in our prisons would 
only be misleading, owing to the very imperfect state of our peniten¬ 
tiary statistics. 

§ 14. Little information is afforded on this subject in the reports sub¬ 
mitted to the congress from England and Ireland. 


CHAPTER IX. 

PRISON OFFICERS—THEIR QUALIFICATIONS AND TRAINING. 

§ 1. It is held by the authors of the report submitted on the part of 
Austria that, besides a technical knowledge of their calling, prison- 
officers should possess a good general education, and have experience of 
life, knowledge of human character, firmness, and a serious and humane 
spirit. The opinion is expressed that the greater number of the officers 
at present employed in the Austrian prisons are men of this character. 
Special training is not provided for this class of public servants. It is 
thought that the experience necessary for a.prison officer may be best 
acquired by actual service in a prison. 

§ 2. In Belgium it is held that the head of a penitentiary establish¬ 
ment should be thoroughly acquainted with everything relating to the 
moral, disciplinary, economic, and industrial administration. He has, 
so to speak, the charge of souls. He must be just, firm, intelligent, 
conciliatory; must know men, and especially criminals; and must pos¬ 
sess, in a high degree, the attribute of probity. Above all, he must be 
animated by sentiments profoundly religious', for it is Christian devo¬ 
tion alone that can sustain him in the path of his duty and give him 
the force and steadfastness necessary to overcome the obstacles which 
will be sure to obstruct his progress. The keepers are moral agents; 
they must offer guarantees of morality, intelligence, zeal, and humanity. 
Their special service is of. a nature to require that they be in the vigor 
of their age; that they have good health and a robust constitution; 
that they possess an energetic character; and that they have a good 
primary education, and, if possible, a knowledge of some one of the 
trades taught in the prison in which they serve. Special training- 
schools for the subordinate officers would be highly desirable, as they 
are apt to enter on their functions without the full preparation required 
by their mission. A school for keepers has existed for some years in 
the penitentiary of Louvain. The directors are recruited from the 
personnel of the administration, where, in passing through the succes¬ 
sive grades, they have necessarily acquired the requisite knowledge. 
Special examinations are a condition precedent of their appointment. 

§ 3. Prison officers in Denmark are appointed partly by the govern¬ 
ment, partly by the prison-inspector. Their appointment and discharge 
are totally independent of political and all other considerations not 
bearing directly on their qualifications and efficiency. There are no 
special training-schools for prison officers. It is thought that such 
would be too costly for a small country like Denmark. 

§ 4. The management of penitentiary establishments, it is held in 
France, requires technical and administrative knowledge of great 
breadth, and offers, besides, special difficulties, arising out of the com¬ 
plicated organization of the service. It demands a profound knowledge 
of business, of ministerial regulations and details, and an unremitting 
application, a quality essentially requisite in all directors. The admin- 



90 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


istrator who finds himself face to face with a contractor, whose interests 
are directly antagonistic to those of the state, ought to unite an unceas¬ 
ing watchfulness with an intelligent control. The principal duties of 
the administrator of penitentiary establishments—such as the organiza¬ 
tion of the prison labor, the examination of tariffs of labor, the mainte¬ 
nance of discipline in the midst of a perverted population, the choice 
and employment of means to awaken in the prisoners thoughts of re¬ 
pentance and ideas of moral renovation—all these duties, and others 
analogous, demand a special aptitude, fortified by an experience more 
or less extended. Penetrated with the idea that the direction of the 
penitentiary establishments cannot be confided, without the gravest 
risks, to agents who do not offer the most trustworthy guarantees, the 
superior administration has established rigid rules to guard against the 
bestowment of the elevated functions of the service upon agents whose 
aptitude and experience would leave the least room for doubt. In the 
same order of ideas, it exacts, in the case of all its agents, of whatever 
degree, the knowledge demanded by the positions which they are to 
fill, and makes their promotion dependent on conditions of time and 
experience, varying according to the importance of the trusts to which 
they aspire. In short, to keep out of the service of the prisons agents 
unable to offer the guarantees desired, a ministerial decree, under date 
of the 25th of March, 1867, instituted, in the ministry of the interior, a 
commission charged with the examination of candidates for employ¬ 
ment in the active service of the central and departmental prisons. 
The programme of the required examination comprises the following 
points: Writing, grammar, arithmetic, the principles of accounts, his¬ 
tory, and geography, (principally of France,) general notions of the 
penal system and of criminal procedure, general ideas of civil law, the 
civil and judicial administration, and the most important provisions of 
the laws, decrees, and ordinances relating to the penitentiary regime. 
The examination includes, in addition, a written composition. The 
result is, that the personnel of the prison service is composed, for the 
most part, of agents, enlightened, capable, and up to the height of the 
duties with which they are charged. Many of the higher officers unite 
to all the aptitudes required in the director of a penitentiary establish¬ 
ment a rare administrative ability and an extensive knowledge of crim¬ 
inality. In the lower ranks of the personnel, a majority of the agents 
are upright, zealous, and earnestly devoted to their duties. 

There do not exist in France schools especially devoted to the educa¬ 
tion of prison officers. The best school in matters of this kind is thought 
to be that of practice and experience. 

§ 5. The following summary is offered of the reports from the German 
states on this subject: 

(1) In Baden, the qualities deemed necessary in a prison officer are: 
Integrity, devotion, energy, firmness, kindness, physical and moral 
courage, and a calm and brave spirit. These qualities are believed to 
be possessed by the superior and by most of the inferior officers. 

Special schools for the education of prison officers have not been es¬ 
tablished, nor is their establishment recommended, because the work 
of prison officers can, it is thought, be best learned by practice. 

(2) To be eligible to the directorship of a prison in Bavaria, the can¬ 
didates must have studied the prescribed subjects in philosophy and 
jurisprudence, and passed the examination admitting them to act as 
judges. Candidates for the position of physician, chaplain, or teacher 
must have completed the studies connected with their several profes¬ 
sions arid undergone satisfactory examinations. Special schools do not 


PRISON OFFICERS-GERMANY-ITALY-MEXICO, ETC. Ul 

exist for the education and training of prison officers. Such schools, it 
is held, would be desirable, since much harm is done by ignorance in 
the treatment of prisoners. 

(3) The report for Prussia holds that, besides personal integrity, 
sufficient general and special knowledge, directors and superior officers 
should be gifted with true and keen observation, a delicate discernment of 
individual character, and ability to read the secret thoughts of prisoners. 
They should also be energetic and strict, and yet kind and entirely im¬ 
partial. Finally, they should possess some administrative capacity, and 
be, to a certain extent, familiar with the technical part of the trades, 
and have some knowledge of farming. As regards the subalterns, good 
directors will make them useful officers if they possess thorough honesty, 
imperturbable coolness, unshakable firmness mixed with gentleness, and 
a sufficient amount of intelligence and of moral and religious instruc¬ 
tion. 

No special training-schools exist. It is thought exceedingly desirable 
that such schools should be established for the education of the inferior 
officers, whose instruction, gained at a primary school, is seldom' wide 
enough to enable them to perfect their knowledge afterward sufficiently 
to do anything beyond routine work. 

(4) In Saxony the officers are appointed by the ministry of the 
interior. They are at first employed on trial, and are dismissed if found 
incompetent. Political influence does not enter into consideration. The 
qualification of the officers is on the average good. Separate schools 
for training officers do not exist. Most of the superior officers undergo, 
before their definitive appointment, a practical training in one of the 
penitentiaries. The higjier the duties to be fulfilled become, and the 
more carefully the system of individual treatment is carried out, the 
more a knowledge of these duties approaches to science, the more nec¬ 
essary are the studies of pedagogy and psychology, and the more it 
becomes absolutely requisite to make special studies, in order to assist 
in attaining the highest efficiency in the administration. Just as no 
teacher can now be chosen, contrary to what was the case in times past, 
from men of another calling, but must be a man who has received a 
thorough education in his special branch, so the officers of prisons will 
be required to have special training, and, therefore, in future, special 
schools will become a necessity. 

(5) In Wiirtemberg there are no special schools for the education of 
prison officers. The directors are usually men who have acted as magis¬ 
trates, and have been formerly engaged in judicial duties, although 
ability to act as a judge is not indispensable for gaining the office of a 
director. The keepers are mostly non-commissioned officers who have 
left the army. 

§ 6. Prison officers in Italy are proposed by the local authorities and 
confirmed by a ministerial decree. In making choice of them, no weight 
is given to their political opinions, but only to their probity and zeal. 
As prison officers require special gifts and knowledge, added to upright¬ 
ness and intelligence, faithfully to fulfill their trust, the administration 
has for some time entertained the idea of establishing preparatory schools, 
and is studying the best plan for their regulation. 

§ 7. The only item furnished on this head by the Mexican report is to 
the effect that schools for the special education of prison officers do not 
exist in the republic. 

§ 8. In the Netherlands, it is deemed to be necessary that the direct¬ 
ors and employes of prisons be men of tried morality, intelligent; and 
gifted with tact and with the knowledge necessary to inspire the respect 


92 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


of the prisoners, even without the use of a severe discipline. This re¬ 
spect depends upon the spirit of justice, equity, and humanity which they 
exhibit in their relations with the prisoners. In the directors especially, 
there is needed a high degree of mental culture and an enlightened un¬ 
derstanding of their duties; we might say, indeed, of their mission. A 
knowledge of the more important foreign languages is necessary, that 
they may be able to read and study the best writings on prison discip¬ 
line and to communicate with the foreign prisoners. It is admitted in 
the report that the majority of the directors and employes of the prisons 
do not possess these talents and qualities, a fact Avhich is due chiefly to 
the circumstance that the salaries are too low, and that the service of the 
prison officers is, in general, too onerous, and held in too little esteem. 
As a consequence, young men of good family and education refuse to 
enter upon this career. 

There are no schools especially designed for the education of prison 
officers. The best school is thought to be a well-organized and well- 
governed prison, where are offered to the young employes the means of 
acquiring knowledge and developing their talents, by the reading and 
study of the best writings on the subject of prisons. 

§ 1). The qualities deemed requisite in Norway in the higher prison 
functionaries are a good education, probity, firmness of character, and 
special aptitude for their work. The compensation at present paid to 
functionaries of the lower grade is so small that no great claims can be 
made upon them. Sobriety, punctuality, firmness in action, a mastery 
of the more common branches of learning, and the knowledge of some 
trade are the qualifications most valued. There are no special training 
schools for prison officers, nor, considering the actual circumstances of 
the country, are such likely to be soon established. No opinion is ex¬ 
pressed in the report on the abstract question of their expediency. 

§ 10. Integrity, humanity, punctuality, and intelligence are held in 
Kussia to be the essential qualities of a good prison officer. The greater 
part of the actual employes are far from possessing these qualifications to 
the extent to be desired. The principal cause of this deficiency is the scanty 
recompense accorded them. There are no special schools for the edu¬ 
cation and training of prison officers. The author of the report, Count 
Sollohub, sees no urgent need of such establishments, since, in his view, 
the essential character of this class of officials is rather moral than 
pedagogic. The practical part, he thinks, can be acquired in some days. 
The count, however, thinks it desirable that there be established in the 
administration of prisons a system of gradual promotion, and thus of 
special service, in harmony with all the other branches of the public 
service. 

§ 11. The qualifications deemed in Sweden essential to a good prison 
officer are a calm and even temper, a character humane and serious, a 
spirit austerely just, and the most exact order and punctuality in the 
performance of his duties. There are no special establishments for the 
instruction and education of this class of officers. The need of such 
institutions makes itself more and more felt by reason of the special 
knowledge and high moral tone required in these officers. The opinion 
is expressed that, while such special schools are wanting, persons desirous 
of entering the penitentiary service ought, prior to a full admission to 
that service, to be required to serve for some time in a well-conducted 
prison. Still, as even there they would acquire only the routine, and 
not the broad knowledge necessary for the due fulfillment of such func¬ 
tions as are required of them, it is recommended in the report that there 
be established a penitentiary normal school, that is, an institution for 


PRISON OFFICERS-NORWAY-RUSSIA-SWEDEN, ETC. 93 

the professional education of young men who aspire to employment in 
the penitentiary service. 

§ 12. In Switzerland the greatest importance is attached to the choice 
of officers charged with the treatment of prisoners, since it is well un¬ 
derstood that prisons badly administered, instead of being hospitals 
for moral diseases, become rather nurseries of criminals. Several of 
the more recently constructed and better-organized penitentiaries are 
presided over by men eminently qualified for their position, and they 
are aided by bands of intelligent employes, who contribute effectively 
to the mission which penitentiary education proposes to itself. Never¬ 
theless, complaint is made, on all sides, of the difficulty experienced in 
finding, for the corps of subordinate employes, men possessing the requi¬ 
site qualities and aptitudes. Schools designed for the special educa¬ 
tion of prison officers do not exist in Switzerland. It is generally felt 
that such schools would render an excellent service, especially if a just 
and sound idea should be given in them of the nature and aim of peni¬ 
tentiary treatment. A school of this kind would have the immense 
advantage of preparing officers who, at present, acquire their experience 
at the expense of the institution. Normal schools for the employes 
might, it is thought, be organized in penitentiary establishments se¬ 
lected for that purpose, in which candidates might pursue a theoretical 
course, and might also be practically initiated into all the branches of 
the service. In a well-organized and ably managed penitentiary novices 
who possess the necessary aptitudes become in a short time entirely 
competent to the discharge of their functions. 

§ 13. The bane of prison administration in the United States is insta¬ 
bility, resulting from the frequent change of officers, which is itself a 
consequence of the wide extent to Avhich political influence enters as an 
element into their appointment. Some States have measurably escaped 
this influence, but they form rare exceptions to the general rule. But 
public opinion is becoming more enlightened on this subject; and, in 
proportion as it gains light and vigor, the tendency toward reform by 
the elimination of this malign power develops itself and becomes stronger 
day by day. Except as lowered through political influence, the average 
qualifications and efficiency of prison officers in America are as good as 
in other countries; but the lack of an effective system of control and 
inspection often makes our prisons less creditable to their officers than 
the real merit of the latter deserves. There are no special training 
schools for prison officers in the United States, but veteran and experi¬ 
enced superintendents, like General Pilsbury, Mr. Brockway, and a few 
others that might be named, do, in the course of time, train a consider¬ 
able number of good officers. The clearest and most authoritative 
exposition of the state of public opinion among us as to the policy ot 
such institutions is contained in the seventh resolution adopted by the 
National Penitentiary Congress of Cincinnati, in these words: 

Special training, as well as higli qualities of bead and heart, is required to make a 
good prison or reformatory officer. Then only will the administration of public punish¬ 
ment become scientific, uniform, and successful, when it is raised to the dignity of a 
profession, and men are specially trained for it, as they are for other pursuits. 

§ 14. In the reports relative to the prisons of England and Ireland, 
little information is communicated on this subject. 


94 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


CHAPTEK X. 

SENTENCES. 

§ 1. It is held in Austria that the frequent repetition of short sen¬ 
tences is rather injurious than beneficial. They blunt the feelings of the 
prisoner both as regards the punishment itself and the degradation con¬ 
nected with it, and their customary effect is to confirm him in crimi¬ 
nality. By Austrian law, former conviction is looked upon as an aggra¬ 
vating circumstance, and the judge is obliged to give a severer sentence 
on re-conviction, even though the offense be of a different class. The 
disciplinary treatment of re-convicted persons is not, as a rule, made 
more severe than that to which those sentenced for a first offense are 
subjected. 

§ 2. Recidivists are more severely punished in Belgium than persons 
committed for a first offense. Nothing is said in the Belgian report as 
to the good or bad effect of repeated short sentences, the reporters re¬ 
garding this as a question peculiar to the criminal legislation and practice 
of the United States; a view of the matter which the undersigned, with 
all due respect, believes to be erroneous. 

§ 3. The criminal courts of Denmark give short sentences for minor 
offenses. This increases the number of crimes, though not of criminals, 
the effect of the short sentences being that the so-called habitual crimi¬ 
nals, more frequently now than before the present penal code was pro¬ 
mulgated, both enter and quit the prisons. 

§ 4. The authors of the report submitted from France appear to be 
somewhat perplexed as to the meaning of the expression “minor offbuses,” 
used in the question. But whether to be understood in the sense 
of those trivial violations of law called “ contraventions” in the French 
criminal code, or in the sense of misdemeanors of no great gravity, both 
of which classes of offense are visited in France with but trifling penal¬ 
ties, it is confessed that,these penalties do not prevent a repetition, nor y 
indeed, the frequent repetition, of the acts against which they are di¬ 
rected. 

A relapse, which, in the legal sense, is the commission after a penal 
sentence of a new criminal act, receives little favor from the French law. 
The circumstance of a prior conviction, and the greater perversity shown 
by a repetition of the offense, seems, in effect, to demand from the legis¬ 
lator an increase of punishment. Doubtless, neither theft nor homi¬ 
cide changes its nature because committed a second time; but a crime 
has two elements, the substance of the act and the criminality of its 
author. The legislator has thought it a duty to take both these circum¬ 
stances into consideration in measuring the punishment. 

§ 5. (1) Of the German states, Baden answers that repeated short 
sentences for trivial offenses produce no good effect; and, therefore, the 
penal code of the empire visits recidivists with punishments of a longer 
duration. 

(2) Bavaria returns a like response. Frequent punishments for minor 
offenses have no good influence; either the prisoners become embittered, 
or the punishments, on account of their frequency, lose their effect. 
More, it is believed, can be done in these cases by reproof and teaching 
than by punishment. Reconviction, especially for robbery, theft, and 
the concealment of stolen goods, is very heavily punished. 

(3) Prussia replies iu the same sense, both as regards the inefficiency 
of repeated short imprisonments and the necessity for increased severity 
of the punishment on reconviction. 


SENTENCES-GERMANY-ITALY-MEXICO, ETC. 95 

(4) The answer of Saxony is in the following words: 

The practice of courts of justice of passing sentences of short duration of imprison¬ 
ment for slight offenses, and of repeating them in case of relapse, does not exist, be¬ 
cause the penal la,\y of the German Empire, even for theft a third time, orders imprison¬ 
ment in a penitentiary, provided there are no extenuating circumstances. What effect 
this practice will have in regard to increase or decrease of crimes is yet problematical, 
and requires further satisfactory experience. 

§ G. Recidivists, in Italy, always receive -severer punishment than 
offenders on first conviction. But the Italian criminal code does not 
regard as crimes the class of offenses known as “contraventions;” hence 
persons guilty of them are not accounted recidivists in the legal sense, 
and judicial statistics take no notice of such infractions of law, whatever 
the number of times they may have been committed by the same person. 
The whole question of sentences is considered so important that the 
prison reform commission, recently created by royal decree, has thought 
fit to make it the subject of a special study. 

§ 7. The commission which prepared the report to the congress for 
Mexico is of the opinion that evil consequences result from the fact that 
imprisonment is inflicted for slight offenses, even in the case of a first 
transgression, especially if the offender be sent to an establishment 
where prisoners are kept in association. 

Reconviction receives the punishment which, the attenuating or 
aggravating circumstance of the case being considered, ought to be 
awarded to th$ offense itself, with an increase of one-sixth, if this is less 
than the former, of one-fourth if it is of the same gravity, and of one- 
third if it is greater. If the offender has been pardoned for a previous 
offense, and if it is not for the first time that he relapses into crime, the 
increase of punishment maybe doubled. 

§ 8. It is not thought in the Netherlands that repeated sentences to 
short imprisonments produce any good effect upon the prisoner. A re¬ 
lapse may give occasion to an increase of the punishment in the ratio 
of one-third, when the first sentence was for more than a year’s impris¬ 
onment ; and in all cases it is a circumstance wljich may determine the 
judge to award the maxim unrof punishment allowed by the law. 

§ 9. Norway answers that experience has not certainly determined 
what effect repeated short sentences have upon the criminal. A prior 
conviction increases the punishment to be inflicted by a subsequent sen¬ 
tence; but as regards the treatment of prisoners during their incarcera¬ 
tion, all receive the same. 

§ 10. The report for Russia uses this strong language: “Not only 
do repeated short sentences produce no good effect, but they create 
criminals by profession.” 

A subsequent offense has the effect to increase the severity of the 
punishment. 

§ 11. Short imprisonments for minor offenses are believed, in Sweden, 
to produce upon the prisoner an unfavorable rather than a favorable 
influence. 

The punishment of thieves is gradually increased on each subsequent 
conviction. A fourth sentence may inflict ten years of hard labor, and 
in very grave cases the sentence may even be for life. But the national 
parliament has recently determined to lower the scale of punishment 
for recidivists convicted of theft. 

§ 12. The directors of the Swiss penitentiaries are unanimous in re¬ 
garding repeated short sentences for minor offenses as a pernicious 
judicial practice which is followed without reflection. The sentiment 
of justice, as well as the moral reformation of the prisoner, requires 
that the repression be more serious and more adequately protracted in 


96 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the case of individuals who take on the habit of crime, and who threaten 
to make it the basis of their character. The effect of these short im¬ 
prisonments becomes worse on each successive conviction. The recidi¬ 
vists fall deeper and deeper, and the prison cannot lift them up. During 
the short stay they make in the penitentiary establishment, it is impos¬ 
sible to teach them a trade or even to make them apt at work. The 
recidivists sentenced correctionally have more or less lost the moral 
sense and self-respect. The influence of the penitentiary education 
cannot affect the individual of this class who, on entering the establish¬ 
ment, counts the exact number of days which separate him from free¬ 
dom. Such prisoners undergo, more or less patiently, the restraint im¬ 
posed upon them ; they are indifferent, and little heed either the present 
or the future which awaits them. 

The existing codes in the several cantons denounce a severer punish¬ 
ment against prisoners convicted more than once. Some sentence them 
to the maximum of the punishment incurred; others add to this pun¬ 
ishment its moiety, and even more, in excess of the maximum. Every 
sentence for an offense exceeding six months becomes an aggravating 
circumstance jn the case of the person who, having suffered it, is pros¬ 
ecuted criminally. 

§13. It is the practice of courts in the United States to give short 
sentences for minor offenses, and to repeat them often in the case of the 
same person. The effect of this here, as everywhere else, i^ and must be 
to increase crime, as our prisons are now managed. Such is the unani¬ 
mous opinion of ail prison keepers, so far as known, in this country. 

§ 14. The reports for England and Ireland are silent on this point. 


OHAPTEE XI. 

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. 

§ 1. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in Austria by law May 4, 
1868, and only a precautionary arrest can take place when the debtor, 
while the action is pending, is accused of an attempt to escape. Such 
an arrest is merely a deprivation of liberty, and the prisoner is allowed 
such advantages as are consistent with simple arrest. 

§2. Debtors’ prisons still exist in Belgium, but they are empty. Cases 
of incarceration for debt have become very rare since the publication of 
the law of the 27th of July, 1871. The treatment to which imprisoned 
debtors are subjected is not the same as that applied to criminals. They 
occupy special cells, have the exclusive enjoyment of an exercise-yard, 
and may communicate with each other, receive four visits a week from 
their relatives and from persons with whom they have business relations, 
and may correspond freely with the outside world. 

§ 3. Xo information is afforded on this point in the report for Denmark. 

§ 4. In France the law of the 22d of July, 1867, put an end to im¬ 
prisonment for debt in commercial and civil matters and in those iu 
which foreigners are concerned. The restraint of the body exists no 
longer, except in matters criminal, correctional, and of simple police. 
The usage has just been re-established as regards the payment of moneys 
due to the state. In such cases the public minister is bound to take 
care that persons imprisoned for debts to the state receive the same 
rations as the other prisoners who are in the charge of the administra¬ 
tion. 



IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT-GERMANY-ITALY, ETC. 97 

The decree of bankruptcy may order the placing of the person of the 
bankrupt in a debtor-prison, and, if there is no such prison, in a part 
of the house of arrest reserved for that purpose. This is a measure which 
prudence almost always dictates. If the debtor is simply unfortunate, 
a safe conduct soon restores him to his family and to liberty; if the 
examination of his conduct justifies rigorous measures, it is thus made 
impossible for him to liberate himself by flight. The arrest and im¬ 
prisonment of the bankrupt must be preceded by the consignment, on 
the part of the commissioners of bankruptcy, of the means of living, 
and, in case of insufficient means for this purpose, the advance of the 
moneys to be consigned iis made from the public treasure, on the order 
of the commissioner, given at the request of the public ministry. The 
French law, as is thus seen, places the incarcerated bankrupt in a 
situation altogether different from that of ordinary prisoners. 

§ 5. The German states report as follows: 

(1) Imprisonment for debt does not exist in Baden. 

(2) In the rare instances of imprisonment for debt in Bavaria, the 
treatment of such prisoners is milder than that of other prisoners. It 
is a mere arrest; they have almost unrestricted liberty as regards cor¬ 
respondence and the receiving of visits; their food is better; and they 
are separated from the other prisoners. 

(3) In commercial and civil matters imprisonment for debt no longer 
exists in Prussia. It is, however, allowed when it becomes necessary 
to secure an examination or a judicial prosecution, or to execute a dis¬ 
tress warraut. The treatment of prisoners for debt is totally different 
from that of criminals. 

(4) No information on this point was furnished by Saxony. 

(*5) There is no imprisonment for debt in Wiirtemberg. 

§ 6. Imprisonment for debt is still practised in Italy. In detention- 
prisons of any considerable size, there are commonly sections destined 
to the imprisonment of civil debtors. In none of them is there want¬ 
ing at least an apartment for whomever is imprisoned on the demand of 
his creditor. The number of persons imprisoned for debt is exceedingly 
small. The maintenance of the debtor is a charge upon the creditor, 
and his treatment differs from that of other prisoners maintained at the 
charge of the state. 

§ 7. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in Mexico as early as 1812, 
and has never been revived. 

§ 8. This practice still prevails in the Netherlands. Persons impris¬ 
oned for debt are placed in the houses of detention and of arrest; some¬ 
times in the cantonal prisons. They are entered on a special register, 
and are not confounded with other prisoners. In the greater part of 
the prisons the best apartments are assigned to them and a little better 
furniture. They do not wear the prison-dress, unless, indeed, they 
have no other; and their food is of a better quality. 

§ 9. Imprisonment for debt still exists in Norway, but the right is sel¬ 
dom used. Its abolishment has been moved, and it cannot be long de¬ 
layed. In the district-prisons rooms are arranged for receiving prisoners 
for debt, but they are furnished nearly in the same manner as common 
dwelling-rooms, and the constraint to which such prisoners are subject 
is only intended to secure their presence and to prevent infractions on 
prison discipline, while in other respects, especially as regards their 
meals and occupation, they are not ranged in the class of other prisou- 
ers. 

§ 10. Debtors’ prisons are still found in Bussia in all their rigor; but 
a special commission has just formulated a project according to which 
H. Ex. 185-7 






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CAUSE OF CRIME-FRANCE-GERMANY-ITALY, ETC. 99 

productive soil parceled oat to infinity by the law of inheritance, de¬ 
mands violently, sometimes even at the cost of his neighbor's life, the 
enlargement of the patch that belongs to himself. 

To these evils, of which France has no monopoly, the report asks, 
Does there exist a remedy which will prove absolute and complete ! It 
may be doubted : bat it is certain that, in elevating morality, in fortify¬ 
ing the heart, in enlarging the boundaries of knowledge, the practical 
ability of men would be increased, and the effects of these evils would 
be diminished by lessening their causes. 

« 5. Germany answers thus: 

1 Baden says: u Thirst for pleasure,** with a reference to 1 John, 

2: lb. 

- As principal causes of crime in Bavaria, are mentioned: 1. Want 
of religious teaching. 2. Abnormal family relations. According to a law 
that existed up to the year 1803, marriage between persons who pos¬ 
sessed no landed property was exceedingly difficult, and, in consequence, 
illegitimate births were very numerous. As a result of the want of the 
beneficial influence which a family-life exercises, illegitimate-born form 
a considerable proportion of ail prisoners. 3. Neglected education, espe¬ 
cially in those parts where children are employed in the guarding of 
cattle or in working in manufactories. 4. Rough manners and customs. 
In some parts of Bavaria it is still a custom of the peasants to carry 
long stiletto-like knives when visiting public-houses and dancing-places; 
and thus, on Sundays and holidays, the slightest cause leads them to 
inflict on each other severe injuries. 

* 6. The inmates of Italian prisons, in 1871, were in the following 
proportions : For crimes against the x>erson, in the bagnios, all males, 4b 
per cent.: in the penitentiaries, males 35 per cent.; females, 23 per cent. 
Crimes against property, in the bagnios. 30 per cent.: in the penitenti¬ 
aries. males, 47 per cent.: females, 53 per cent. The chief causes of 
crime, accordingly, are stated to be cupidity, revenge, anger, and illicit 
passion. 

1 7. The answer returned by the Mexican government is so interesting, 
as well as able, that it is given, without condensation, in the words of 
the commission which prepared the refjort. The commissioners say: 

Among the most general causes of crime in our country are want of education in 
the lower classes, abase of intoxicating drinks, and poverty. Among the temporary 
and transitory causes which occasion the crimes and offenses committed in oar coun¬ 
try, the eofcmissLOQ thinks that the most active are the following: The prolongation of 
civil war. the impressment to obtain soldiers, the bad state of our prisons, the com¬ 
motion created in the religious faith of society by the innovations made in ecclesias¬ 
tical matters, the want of preventive police, and the bad administration of justice. 

Though all our statesmen and philanthropists have of late become aware of the im¬ 
portance and convenience to the public of the establishment of the penitentiary sys¬ 
tem, the financial difficulties, the little stability of oar governments, and the constant 
necessity in which we have been placed to defend oar existence against the attempts 
of revolutionary bands—an object which has almost exclusively absorbed car atten¬ 
tion—have until now prevented the realization of this great social reform. Conse¬ 
quently. great criminals and petty offenders being indiscriminately mixed in our 
prisons, the eontaet. the association, and the example of the former have exercised a 
baneful infinence on the latter : and. generally, those who, having offended against the 
law. are sent to oar prisons and have remained some time in them, far from being 
reformed, leave the jail considerably worse than when they first passed under its gates. 
The improvement of oar political state will also contribute to do away with, or at least 
to lessen, the bad effects of this cause : and the reform of oar prisons, directed first of 
all to the total separation of prisoners, most be. according to public opinion, one of 
the first obieets to which government ought to devote its attention, as soon as we have 
pat into practice the principle that authority cannot be reformed by any other meaus 
than the pacific action of the laws, and that in consequence people are no longer exclu¬ 
sively preoccupied with the care of their own preservation. _ d 


100 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


§ 8. The chief causes of crime in the Netherlands are stated to be the* 
want of education, drunkenness, and the desire to make a figure beyond 
one’s means and position. In the case of young prisoners, there may 
be mentioned, in addition, the influence, often pernicious, of a second 
marriage of their parents, which not unfrequently, by embittering the 
position of the children of the first marriage, deprives them of the 
salutary influence of family-life. 

§ 9. Crime in Norway, being for the most part a violation of the rights 
of property and assaults on the person, is traced mainly to laziness, drunk¬ 
enness, bad company, neglected education, and the want of good home- 
influences. 

§ 10. In answering this question for Russia, Count Sollohub says: 

The cause of crimes in my country arises from a certain oriental fatalism, which 
enters profoundly into the character of the people. This fatalism, which is associated 
with a profound religious faith, inspires frequently a singular indifference to life and 
death, to the enjoyments and privations of life, sometimes even to moral good and evil. 
The result is a spirit of indolence, which, however, is often roused by the temptation 
to drunkenness and the excitements occasioned by it. 

At the same time the count avers that the want of a general system 
of elementary education, abuses tolerated by a still defective adminis¬ 
tration, and a legislation which is not yet definitely settled, contribute in 
propagating lamentable disorders. He holds that, in the Russian peni¬ 
tentiary system, the cause of criminality must be kept in view, just a& 
the cause of disease should not be ignored when the physician proceeds 
to treat his patient. 

§ 11. The chief causes of crime in Sweden are the want of proper care 
in youth, bad company, evil examples, poverty, and the love of strong 
drink. An additional cause is that he who has once fallen into crime 
and been imprisoned for it is generally repelled and left without help in his 
efforts to gain an honest living. The re-admission of liberated prisoners 
into society is the more difficult, as by existing law every person who 
has been sentenced for theft, forgery, murder, &c., is further sentenced 
to loss of civil rights for a time (at least five years) or for life. This 
covers him with infamy, and consequently excludes him from all the 
rights and advantages pertaining to honorable men. His civil degrada¬ 
tion is entered on his certificate of conduct. 

§12. The question of the causes of crime is elaborately and ably 
treated in the report from Switzerland, a mere enumeration of which 
only can be given by the undersigned. These causes are said to be 
malign or defective education, abnormal family relations, sensualism, 
recklessness, drunkenness, and want of a trade or other regular business* 

§ 13. The prevailing character of crime in the United States is hard 
to define. In the South and West crimes of violence, in the North and 
East crimes of fraud are common, and theft prevails very generally, 
though not so much as in Europe. Many of our most accomplished 
thieves and burglars come to us from the old country. Intemperance 
is a proximate cause of much the greater number of crimes here ; orphan¬ 
age, idleness, the want of family government, and the wretched home- 
life, or lack of home-life, in great cities, are leading causes of crime. A 
desire to live without work leads to much crime here, as well as in other 
countries. 

§ 14. No information is furnished on this subject by the English or 
Irish reports. 


LIBERATED PRISONERS-AUSTRIA—BELGIUM, ETC. 101 


CHAPTEK XIII. 

LIBERATED PRISONERS. 

§ 1. The effort to procure work for liberated prisoners has, in Austria, 
been limited, hitherto, to this, that those who have learned a trade in 
prison receive a letter stating that they have done so, and those who 
have shown themselves particularly attentive receive a testimonial to 
that effect. In particular cases steps are taken on the part of the offi¬ 
cials to procure work for those prisoners whose conduct has been 
exemplary and who have given proofs of firmness. The results, how¬ 
ever, have been too isolated to afford any statistics upon'the subject. 

There is only one Liberated Prisoners’ Aid Society, which is in Vienna. 
All efforts on the part of the prison directors to call into existence simi¬ 
lar societies elsewhere have been unsuccessful. The society in Vienna 
limits its operation to supporting liberated prisoners till they shall have 
found occupation, and to aiding them with tools, clothes, &c. 

§2. No prisoners’aid or patronage societies are found in Belgium,* 
but the government has not lost sight of this important point. Efforts 
>vere made in 1848 to organize such associations; but, unhappily, the 
measures taken were not crowned with success. While waiting, the 
administration seeks the best means for assuring to liberated prisoners 
an effectual protection, so as to prevent their falling back into crime. 
A special credit figures even in the budget of the department of justice, 
permitting the administrative commissions of reformatory institutions 
to extend aid to their liberated inmates. 

§ 3. In 1859 prisoners’ aid associations were formed for each of the 
four great prisons of Denmark. Their action is limited to released pris¬ 
oners. Each prison has thus its own society, founded by private liber¬ 
ality alone, which is to be considered as a charitable association ,* and it 
is thought to act best in that manner. The societies have annual gen¬ 
eral meetings, by which the administrations are elected. On the admin¬ 
istrations there are always chosen some of the functionaries of the pris¬ 
ons, so that they may be put into direct relations therewith. As mem¬ 
bers of the administration, there are particularly selected citizens who 
carry on an extended business as manufacturers, merchants, artisans or 
agriculturists, and who have great influence, because they have it in 
their power to employ a large number of workmen. Once a month some 
member of each society appears in the prison to see the prisoners who 
are to be released the ensuing month. Their behavior is examined, and 
an agreement is made in regard to tendering the help that, according 
to circumstances, seems to be most fit. Not all prisoners are assisted, 
but mainly those who, on account of their diligence and good behavior, 
are recommended by the director. What, next to the behavior, is most 
taken into consideration is their age, their want, and their earlier life. 
The younger are especially helped by getting them into service; the 
older, by money; the artisan, by tools, &c. On the greater part the 
help is bestowed as a gift , but on some as a loan. Some are only prom¬ 
ised help on condition that they first manifest their will to help them¬ 
selves. All about, in the country, the society has its agents, to whom 
it confides its wards. These societies appear thus to be well organized. 
Every year they awaken a greater sympathy, and the number of their 
members increases. For ten years the state has given an annual sub¬ 
sidy ; and the most cheering circumstance is that the municipal author¬ 
ities, as well in the towns as in the country, more and more make annual 


102 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


contributions, making it clear that the cause has been approved by the 
people. Several legacies have been left to the associations, the interest 
of which is to be expended in procuring clothes for released prisoners. 
The largest of these bequests is $5,500. 

§ 4. Up to the present time the patronage of liberated prisoners has 
not been generally or systematically organized in France. The Abbe 
Coural founded iu 1842, near Montpellier, under the title of Solitude of 
Nazareth, a refuge designed for the liberated females of the south. The 
Sisters of Mary-Joseph, in imitation of this example, have founded seven 
other refuges near the central prisons, for women. There is only one 
establishment of this kind for men, the asylum of St. Leonard, at 
Oouzon, (Ehone.) The results of the refuges devoted to women are good ; 
those obtained at the asylum at St. Leonard are less satisfactory. 
Two active and successful patron age-societies, in aid of liberated 
Protestants of both sexes, have been for some years in existence. Since 
the official report was made to the congress, a central patronage society 
lias been established in Paris, which proposes to found branches in all 
parts of France, as may be found practicable. The administration is 
earnestly engaged in seeking the means to increase the number of in¬ 
stitutions similar to those mentioned above. 

What is said above relates exclusively to adults discharged from 
prisons. The liberated juveniles of the department of the Seine are 
placed under the patronage of a society which facilitates their admission 
to provisional liberty and aids them in acquiring a trade. No better 
planned, efficient, or successful organization of the kind exists in any 
part of the world. It is but fair to the penitentiary administration of 
France to say that this last statement is not contained in their report; 
the responsibility for it is assumed by the undersigned. 

§ 5. Germany responds as follows: 

(1) In Baden, the directors of the penitentiary establishments are 
required to enter, for this purpose, into correspondence with the 
authorities of the political administration some time before the libera¬ 
tion of each prisoner; it is made the duty of these authorities to unite 
with the prisoners’ aid societies and with the local authorities in pro¬ 
viding for liberated prisoners. This measure is only of recent date, 
and its results have not yet shown themselves to any great extent. 
They cannot fail to be good. 

Prisoners’ aid societies exist in twenty-one out of fifty-nine districts. 
The results are satisfactory. 

(2) To procure work for those liberated prisoners who are considered 
as improved, the administration in Bavaria puts itself into communica¬ 
tion, while the prisoner is still under their care, with honest employers, 
with benevolent societies, with the parish vestries, or with other author¬ 
ities. The prisoner receives on his dismissal, if necessary, clothes and 
traveling expenses from the funds of the prison. By these means pris¬ 
oners are often preserved from relapse. 

In every province of the country there exist liberated prisoners’ aid 
societies; these are, however, hampered in their activity by ignorance, 
and the little interest which exists in the mind of the public, in many 
places, respecting their objects. But the Munich Society, which has 
existed for eleven years, has found employment for 1,182 discharged 
prisoners, of whom 377 have relapsed, while 805 conduct themselves 
well, and may be considered as reformed. The objects of these societies 
are to receive into a refuge those who are homeless, to try to procure 
them work, to give help—more especially in the shape of tools—and to 
watch carefully the conduct of each discharged prisoner. 


LIBERATED PRISONERS-GERMANY-ITALY, ETC. 103 

(3) In Prussia, the administrative authorities of prisons use their best 
efforts to obtain protection and work for liberated prisoners. For this 
purpose they communicate with the minister and authorities of the 
birth-place or residence of the prisoner, and, wherever they exist, with 
prisoners’ aid societies. Owing to the reluctance of masters and work¬ 
men to have relations with liberated prisoners, the efforts made to aid 
them have not been satisfactory in their results. 

Aid societies exist in many towns, but they have neither a common 
organization nor a common center which unites them ; and many more 
are wanted to make them bear any just proportion to the extent of 
country. Their number is too small and their action too feeble suffi¬ 
ciently to realize the objects they have in view. The aim of these so¬ 
cieties is to give temporary shelter and work to liberated prisoners, 
either in asylums provided by the society or in the houses of private 
persons of honorable character. They seek in every possible way to 
maintain relations with their wards, in order to aid them with counsel 
or pecuniary gifts. 

(4) Saxony communicates no information on this point. 

• (5) In Wurtemberg there has been a patronage society for liberated 
prisoners, w 7 ith branches in the different districts of the kingdom. It 
has 3,000 members. It seeks to aid its wards by obtaining work for 
them, and by supplying them with tools, raw material for manufacture, 
clothes, bedding, &c. 

§ 6. In Italy certain religious associations possess funds that may be 
used in aid of liberated prisoners$ an occasional patronage society exists 
in some of the cities. Such societies are what remain of institutions, 
more or less ancient, which were religiously preserved and even protected 
by the Italian government; but there are none of any great importance, 
except at Milan, Turin, and Florence. The government has sought to 
extend institutions of this kind; but down to the present time, such 
institutions are too few in number and too limited in means to justify a 
prediction as to whether they will take root in the social soil of Italy, and, 
if so, whether their rules should be preserved or modified in order that the 
best fruit for which they were founded may be obtained from them. 

§ 7. The commissioners who prepared the report for Mexico state that 
as regards the federal district—the only part of the republic of which 
they have any positive information—committees of vigilance are being 
established, and to them, among others, belongs the duty of aiding dis¬ 
charged prisoners in finding work. 

§ 3. The Netherlands government, as such, does not charge itself offi 
cially with the care of liberated convicts; but many directors of prisons 
take great pains to find work for them, and generally they have cause 
to congratulate themselves on the result of their efforts. The greater 
part of the directors, however, are reported as too indifferent to concern 
themselves much about the matter. 

The Netherlands {Society for the Moral Amelioration of Prisoners has 
for its object, not only the visiting of prisoners, but also the manifesta¬ 
tion of an interest in their welfare after their discharge from prison. 
This society counts forty branches, scattered throughout the whole king¬ 
dom, and corresponding members in thirty-seven places where there are 
no branches. To some of the branch societies are attached committees 
of ladies. As regards the prisoners, a variety of methods is employed 
to encourage and help them. They procure situations for them at serv¬ 
ice, place them in the merchant-marine, supply them with tools, obtain 
for them some little industry or business, provide them with the means 
of emigrating, &c. The results differ, as a matter of course; but the 


104 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


society accomplishes much, and often sees its efforts crowned with suc¬ 
cess. 

§ 9. With a view of guarding released prisoners from relapse, efforts are 
made in Norway to procure work for them, to get positions for them as sail¬ 
ors, to aid them with tools, money, clothing, &c. At the same time, it is 
thought that too much assistance weakens their moral forces. There 
exist a few discharged prisoners-aid societies, but they lack the means 
to do their work as extensively and efficiently as would be desirable. 

§ 10. Hitherto little has been done in Russia to aid discharged pris¬ 
oners in obtaining work. The first patronage society has just been offi¬ 
cially established in St. Petersburg. 

§ 11. Prisoners’ aid societies exist at present only in two provinces 
of Sweden. They aim. at obtaining work for prisoners in the houses 
of steady masters; they also supply clothing, and sometimes make ad¬ 
vances in money on the prisoner’s work. Occasionally those express¬ 
ing a desire have received aid to enable them to emigrate. Of late 
years it has been proposed to make greater efforts to give a more prac¬ 
tical direction to the labors of these societies. They have started out 
on the principle that if habits of order and cleanliness are obtained by 
the discipline of the prison, and the time of imprisonment is properly 
employed in the moral education of the prisoners and in giving'them 
skill in industrial and agricultural labor, the societies can more gener¬ 
ally find them work immediately on their liberation. For prisoners for 
whom work is not at once obtained, it is proposed to establish agricul¬ 
tural colonies, where they may learn order in work and skill in certain 
branches of farming, so as thus afterward to be able more readily to 
earn an honest living. 

§ 12. Patronage societies are organized in nearly all the cantons of 
Switzerland. That in the canton of St. Gall was established in 1839, 
thirty-four years ago. It was made by law the duty of every prisoner, 
who was a native of St. Gall, or had his domicile there, to place himself 
for three months at least under the protection of the society. Where- 
ever patronage societies exist, they aid discharged prisoners by their 
counsels, watch over their conduct, shield them from evil enticements, 
and purchase the clothing, tools, &c., which may be needed by them. 
They endeavor to aid their beneficiaries by procuring work rather than by 
giving them assistance in money. But, in spite of all these efforts, the 
results do not correspond to the desires of the friends of prison reform. 
There is not sufficient unity in the organization of patronage. This is a 
great inconvenience, which the Swiss Society for-Penitentiary Reform is 
seeking to remove, by bringing into mutual relation all those persons 
who, in the different cantons, occupy themselves with the patronage of 
liberated prisoners. 

§ 13. Theworkof aiding liberated prisoners, audthus seeking to prevent 
their return to crime, is by uo means as extensively or as thoroughly 
organized in the United States as it ought to be. Massachusetts has an 
official agency for this purpose, which has accomplished and is accom¬ 
plishing an immense amount of good. The New York Prison Associa¬ 
tion, the Philadelphia Prison Society, the California Prison Commission, 
and the Maryland Prisoners’ Aid Association are the four most efficient 
organizations of this kind in the country. There are a few minor organ¬ 
izations in different localities, more or less useful • but their work is, for 
the most part, restricted for the want of sufficient means to make it 
broader and more effective. It will be the work of the National Prison 
Association to organize such agencies in all the States where their or¬ 
ganization may be found practicable. 


LIBERATED PRISONERS-NORWAY-RUSSIA, ETC. 105 

§ 14. The patronage of liberated prisoners is more extensive, more 
thoroughly organized, more active, and more successful in England than, 
perhaps, in any other country. Some forty associations of this kind are 
found in the metropolis and the counties. They aid, annually, over 6,000 
released prisoners. The assistance given differs according as it is granted 
to men or women. That accorded to men consists in procuring 
work for them and in furnishing them, while awaiting employment, 
board, clothing, &c. Two societies, however, have founded, each, a ref¬ 
uge for men. One of these deserves special mention. It has an aver¬ 
age number of thirty-three men, occupied iu making mats. It is the In¬ 
dustrial Home of Wakefield, in connection with the prison of that name. 
During a period of seven years this establishment has received 942 
beneficiaries. The proceeds of their labor have sufficed to defray all 
expenses, and the men commonly earn a surplus of a few shillings each 
weekly. On the 30th of September, 1S71, there was in the treasury be¬ 
tween $4,000 and $5,000 of surplus earnings. 

The assistance given to women is solely through the agency of ref¬ 
uges. It is, in fact, difficult to find immediate employment at domestic 
service for a woman just out of prison. She requires to be subjected to 
some preliminary probation. Discharged female prisoners themselves 
feel the necessity for this support which preserves them from fresh 
temptations. Hence they seek the interposition of aid societies in 
much larger proportions than men. 

§ 15. Ireland has no patronage society for its convict-prison. The in¬ 
termediate prison at Lusk, with its agent for discharged prisoners, does 
all that is necessary for men, and two refuges, one Catholic, the other 
Protestant, for women. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

SUGGESTIONS RELATING TO REFORMS. 

The following was the closing question of the series addressed to 
governments, the replies to which have furnished the comprehensive 
and valuable information contained in the preceding chapters, viz : 
“Are you satisfied with the penitentiary system of your country? What 
defects, if any, do you find in it? What changes or modifications would 
you wish* to see introduced V The substance of the answers returned 
will be embodied in the present chapter. 

§ 1. The answer of Austria is that the system of imprisonment as it 
exists in that country suffers from the fact that there is too great a 
uniformity in the punishment, and that there is not a prison for each 
kind of punishment. This, it is said, interferes with the effect of the 
various kinds of punishment, especially with those of a strict character. 
To remedy this it would be desirable, the report states: 1, to lessen the 
various kinds of punishment in number, and, if possible, to reduce them 
to three; 2, that every one of these punishments be characterized by dif¬ 
ferences in the dietary and treatment of the prisoner; and, 3, that every 
kind of of punishment be undergone iu prisons specially designed for it. 

§ 2. Belgium replies that she is satisfied with her existing system, in 
so far as that reply is not applicable to establishments on the congre¬ 
gate plan, and that the transformation of these into cellular prisons is 
actively progressing. 



106 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


§ 3. Under certain reserves the French report points out the follow¬ 
ing reforms and ameliorations as desirable in the penitentiary system : 

1. The abolition of the punishment of imprisonment for offenses of little 
gravity, in place of which should be substituted, as far as possible, 
pecuniary penalties, the temporary privation of certain civil rights, &c. 

2. The definitive choice of a system of imprisonment for prisoners 
awaiting examination or trial and for those sentenced to punishments 
of a duration not exceeding two years. 3. The adoption of a peniten¬ 
tiary system applicable, under different degrees of severity, to: 1, cor¬ 
rectional convicts, sentenced to a punishment of two years and over; 
2, reclusionaries; 3, persons sentenced to hard labor. 4. The organi¬ 
zation of patronage societies, to which liberated prisoners may have 
recourse on their discharge from the penitentiaries. 

§ 4. The German states represented in the congress give answer thus : 

(1) Baden says that she is satisfied with her penitentiary system, 
since the cellular system, as a rule, is adopted. 

(2) Bavaria replies that the system of associated imprisonment which 
exists in most of her prisons cannot be considered satisfactory, par¬ 
ticularly as the greater part of them are old castles or convents, which 
are ill-adapted to purposes of imprisonment. 

(3) The answer of Prussia is given in the words of the report, as 
follows: 

In many respects the organization of Prussian prisons may be considered perfect. 
Order especially characterizes the administration. The assiduous care taken in regard 
to the prisoners in all respects and the efforts made to give them work suited to their 
capacities are beyond reproach. The discipline, severe, yet just, is excellent. The 
instruction and religious exhortations are efficiently and carefully given. On the 
other hand, our system has some grave defects which urgently demand the remedy we 
are earnestly striving to find. Part of the prisons require complete rebuilding ; others 
need internal reconstruction ; a general rule enforcing the separation of prisoners at 
night is urgently required, and their isolation, both by day and night, ought to be more 
extensively applied. We need the application of cellular imprisonment in all cases of pre¬ 
liminary detention and of short sentences. We think this system also indispensable tor 
the objects aimed at in all penitentiary reclusion, and we consequently propose a pro¬ 
portional increase in the number of cells. We ought also to devise means for permitting 
the prisoners to work in the open air more than they do at present, and to effect this 
change in such a manner that the new measure may serve as a preparatory step for 
the prisoner’s return to liberty. It is moreover very requisite to care more for the 
preliminary training of the inferior officers, to increase their number, and to give them 
facilities for passing, after a certain length of service in prisons, into other branches 
of the state-service. Lastly, to solve the difficulties which till now have obstructed 
effective prison-reform in our country, we must create a central organization which 
would regulate prisons of every kind aud have due regard to the interest of every 
nature connected with prison administration. 

§ 5. Norway replies in a very general way, with no definite proposi¬ 
tion of interest to other nations, except that favoring the establishment 
of separate prisons for women. 

§ 6. Holland says that the greatest defect in her penitentiary system 
is that there is no system, or, rather, that the two systems of associated 
and cellular imprisonment are applied without any uniform rule, and 
without placing them in a harmonious relation to each other. Hence 
there is a pretty general agreement that a reform is necessary, and that 
it should have mainly two objects in view : a revision of the penal laws, 
which would introduce a more uniform and more harmonious system of 
imprisonment, and a serious effort to give greater dignity to "the posi¬ 
tion of the directors and employes, and to open these offices to men of a 
higher education. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as regards 
the system to be followed, (and they are great, since all the systems 
which divide savans find their partisans,) on these two points there is a 
very general agreement. 


REFORMS-FRANCE-GERMANY-NORWAY, ETC. 107 

§ 7. Count Soli ok ub, replying for Russia, submitted a special and 
very able paper on this point, developing a complete penitentiary sys¬ 
tem, which he had drawn up and presented to the imperial government, 
as president of the commission on penitentiary reform for the empire. 
This paper, the production of a profound and, for the most part, right- 
thinking intellect, though long, is too valuable to be omitted. In sub¬ 
mitting it to the congress, the count remarked that the brief view, pre¬ 
sented by him, of the present state of the prison question in Russia 
sufficiently showed the urgent need of reform in his country. He said 
that the imperial commission, over which he has the honor to preside, 
had just completed the draught of a prison system, which was about to be 
revised by the proper authority, and he judged that it might have some 
interest for the eminent specialists then assembled in London. At all 
events, he desired the criticisms of his honorable colleagues in the con¬ 
gress, it being understood that the plan proposed is based chiefly on 
the circumstances and necessities of his native country. 

The penitentiary system proposed by the imperial commission is, it will 
be seen, in the form of a bill or project of law, to be enacted by the 
supreme law-making power of the empire. It is in the words follow¬ 
ing, to wit: 


I —Classification of the Places of Imprisonment. 

1. All the places of imprisonment in the empire are divided into: a, preliminary; 
b, penal. 

2. The places of preliminary imprisonment are used for the incarceration of: a, 
persons awaiting examination or trial; b, persons convicted and awaiting the execu¬ 
tion of their sentence ; c, persons arrested by the police. 

3. The places of penal imprisonment are used for the incarceration of persons sen¬ 
tenced by judgment of a court. 

4. The places of preliminary imprisonment are subdivided into: a, police prisons; 
b, houses of justice. 

5. The places of penal imprisonment are subdivided, according to the duration of the 
detentions, into : a, short duration ; b, moderate duration; c, long duration. 

6. The places of penal imprisonment of short duration are: a, jails (les arrets;) * 
b, houses of amendments 

7. The places of penal detention of moderate duration are houses of correction. 

8. The places of penal detention of long duration aie convict-prisons, (maisons 
de Jorce.)\ 

9. All prisons are divided, according to their localities, into: a, provincial; b, cen¬ 
tral. 

10. The provincial prisons are: a, police prisons; b, houses of justice; c, jails; d , 
houses of amendment. 

11. The central prisons are : a, houses of correction ; b, convict-prisons. 

12. The provincial prisons are considered, as regards revenue, unproductive. 


* We have nothing in this country corresponding to the prisons here called arrets 
They seem to answer most nearly to our county jails, particularly in that function of 
these latter whereby they become places of punishment for persons convicted of trivial 
offenses. But the main function of our jails is to serve as prisons of preliminary de¬ 
tention. With this explanation, I translate the term arrets by our word jail, as our 
language appears to afford no other.—E. C. W. 

t This is another class of prisons for which we have no equivalent. Both the thing 
and its designation are wanting with us. The proper translation would be “ houses 
of reformation,” or 11 reformatory prisons; ” but, as will be seen, the term of imprison¬ 
ment in them is limited to three mouths and they are intended to act by intimidation, 
so that both the duration of the imprisonment and the predominant agency to be em¬ 
ployed are against the idea of reformation, properly so called. The only thing I could 
do, therefore, was to transfer, without translating, the original word amendment 3 and 
leave the reader to interpret it for himself.—E. C. W. 

| These correspond most nearly to our state-prisons and the English convict- 
prisons, being intended for prisoners guilty of the more heinous crimes. The expres¬ 
sion by which they are designated, maisons de force, will be translated, in this version, 
convict-prisons. —E. C. W. 



108 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


13. The central prisons are considered, as regards revenue, productive. 

14. Besides the prisons above mentioned, there shall be established in the empire 
refuges and penitentiary colonies for juvenile prisoners. 

II.— Organization of the Prisons. 

15. The reform and organization of the prisons of the empire shall be effected grad¬ 

ually, but all the kinds and gradations shall be established simultaneously in the dif¬ 
ferent provinces. ... 

16. Imprisonments made by the police take place, in the districts, near the com¬ 
munal administrations; in the cities, near the police-stations and their sections. 

Observation. —The prisons may also serve for persons arrested by the administration. 

17. Houses of justice for preliminary detention shall be established in the cities of 
the provinces and of the districts, and in other localities, if necessary. 

18. Houses of justice shall be established, as far as possible, in connection with edi¬ 
fices devoted to judicial purposes. 

19. Preliminary and penal prisons cannot be established in the same building. 

20. Jails, {les arrets,) where punishment for light offenses (contraventions) is under¬ 
gone, shall be established in all cities, and in other localities, if necessary. 

21. Houses of amendment shall be established in all provincial and district cities 
where they are needed. 

22. Houses of correction shall be established only in places where orders for the pro¬ 
ducts of industrial labor are likely to be received. 

23. Convict-prisons shall be established in the neighborhood of coal-beds, stone 
quarries, salt-pits, and other localities suited to the organization of toilsome and pro¬ 
ductive industries for long terms of imprisonment. The punishment of “ hard labor” 
(travaux forces) shall not be applied exclusively in countries outside the limits of Euro¬ 
pean Russia, (Siberia.) 

24. In the central prisons the establishment of hospitals is obligatory. In other 
prisons, hospital treatment is to be provided as far as possible. 

25. Baths and, if possible, hospitals for the prisoners shall be established within the 
inclosure of the prisons, but separate from the main buildings. 

26. The houses of justice and of amendment require two courts—one for the admin¬ 
istration, the other for the prisoners. 

27. A third court for the work-shops is required in the central prisons. 

28. Stores of wood, sheds for tools and farming implements, the cellars, the stables, 
shall be placed outside the prison inclosure, in the court devoted to the general affairs 
of the establishment. 

29. Near the houses of justice, the jails, and the houses of amendment there shall be 
arranged small gardens, in which the prisoners can take exercise. 

30. Near the central prisons there shall be allotments of ground for cultivation : for 
houses of correction, not less than five acres per hundred prisoners; for convict prisons, 
not less than twenty-seven acres per hundred prisoners. 

31. All the persons employed in the houses of justice, the houses of amendment, and 
the central prisons, except the head of the establishment and the overseer-in-chief, 
(male or female,) shall have their lodgings in the court devoted to the general affairs 
of the establishment. 

32. There shall be a space of ground not less than twenty-three yards in width for a 
circular road around the central prisons. This principle is not obligatory for the other 
prisons. 

III. —Discipline of the Prisons. 

A.—General regulations. 

33. The discipline of all the prisons shall have for its base the three following prin¬ 
ciples : justice, guardianship, nationality. 

34. The system of discipline of all the prisons shall have in view: 1. For prisoners 
awaiting trial— a, their complete separation, to prevent all connivance ; b, the preven¬ 
tion of the association of prisoners charged with offenses of different degrees of guilt; 
c, the enjoyment of all privileges and comforts not inconsistent with the course of 
justice. 2. For prisoners under sentence— a, the just punishment of the crimes of 
which they have been judicially declared guilty; b, the exercise of a guardianship, 
which has in view the destiny of the convicts after their liberation. 

From this last consideration arise the essential exigencies and special aims of the 
system : a, for jails, admonition; b, for houses of amendment, intimidation; c, for 
houses of correction, punishment, combined with a system of education, of industrial 
labor, and of preparation of the prisoners for a return to society; d, for convict-prisons, 
chastisement, with toilsome labor, having in view the ulterior colonization of the 
• convicts. 


REFORMS-RUSSIA. 


109 


35. Churches are obligatory in all central prisons. In other classes of prisons chan- 
prisoners^ 1 re<4mrec ^* 4ma S es shall he placed in all the rooms appropriated to 

36. There shall he special regulations for each kind of imprisonment. These regula¬ 
tions will form a general code. . ° 

. Observation — There shall he given, in addition, hy a competent authority, personal 
instructions to each head of a prison. 

37. Every prisoner shall he placed in the kind of prison named in the sentence of 
the court. 

38. The provincial prisons may receive into the same building the two sexes under 
the same administration, hut the parts of the prison appropriated to each sex must he 
entirely separated from each other. 

39. The central prisons, for each sex, must he separate and distinct establishments. 

40. The system of association at night (and of beds on planks) is abolished. For the 
houses of justice and of amendment there shall he the system of complete separation 
between the prisoners; for the central prisons, the system of separation, hy night in 
common dormitories.* 

. 43 • In the prisons of preliminary detention, labor is not obligatory; it is obligatory 
in all other classes of prisons. c & J 

42. All changes in the distribution or placing of prisoners during the day shall he 
effected, in the penal prisons, hy the ringiug of a hell. 

43. There shall he, in all penal prisons, modes of encouragement, consisting of privi¬ 
leges granted to the prisoners. r 

44. There shall be, in all detention-prisons, a system of disciplinary punishments. 
Corporal punishment shall be permitted only in convict-prisons. In all other prisons 
there shall bo allowed only incarceration, more or less rigorous. 

45. The maximum duration of imprisonment is fixed : a, for jails, at three months • 
&, for houses of amendment, at one year and four months; c , for houses of correction 5 
at oue year to four years ; d, for convict-prisons, from six years to life. 

46. In the cellular houses of amendment, the duration of imprisonment shall he re¬ 
duced hy one-third.t 

47. The mode of transferring prisoners will he made the object of a special regula¬ 
tion. 


B.—Special regulations. 

1. For police-imprisonments: 

48. The detention-houses in the communes and police-districts have, for their end, only 
to provide for the safe-keeping of persons awaiting examination. 

49. Every person who has given occasion to a judicial prosecution shall he kept in 
separate confinement, wherever it is possible. 

50. Preliminary police-imprisonments shall he conformed to existing laws. 

2. For imprisonments in houses of justice: 

51. Wherever it is possible, conveyance to houses of justice shall take place in cellular 
carriages. In cases where the prisoners are taken on foot, they shall have the right to 
wear a hood on the head. 

52. Individuals confined in houses of justice shall he placed at first in receiving-cells, 
from which they shall he taken, in rotation, to go through the formalities required by 
law, to he submitted to the inspection of the doctor, and to undergo the prescribed 
ablutions. 

53. The prisoners have the right to keep their own clothing, unless it is worn out or 
too much soiled. In that case, they will he furnished with clothing by the establish¬ 
ment, hut of different color and cut from that prescribed for convicts. 

54. Photographs of prisoners shall be taken, if it is considered necessary. 

55. Every article found on the prisoner, except his clothing, his shoes, and his linen, 
together with his baptismal cross and marriage-ring, shall be taken from him and kept 
in a place devoted to that purpose. A receipt shall be given to the prisoner for the 
money and effects placed in this repository. 

56. The cell of the prisoner must be, in its dimensions, not less than fifteen square 


* An apparent contradiction ; but the arrangement seems to be this : The dormitories 
are to be common, with small apartments, or cells, arranged round their walls, by 
which the separation is effected.—E. C. W. 

t Some members of the commission voted with the president, Count Sollohub, for a 
reduction of two-thirds. 



110 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


archives,* and must contain at least three cubic sagenes * of air. Special care must be 
given to the lighting and ventilation of the cell. 

57. It is permitted to prisoners to have their beds, furniture, books, and writing- 
materials. 

58. Prisoners who desire to work shall be encouraged therein. Three-fourths of their 
earnings, after deducting the cost of material, shall belong to the prisoner. The other 
fourth shall be deemed the revenue of the establishment, for the purchase of tools, 
materials, &c. 

59. The prisoners shall have the legal rations of the prison and shall receive half a 
pound of meat per day ; but they have the right to better diet, if they have the means 
of paying for it. 

00. Prisoners have the right to smoke, but this privilege shall be withdrawn from 
those who use fire imprudently. 

61. The prisoners shp.ll have the right to take exercise, but their head must be cov¬ 
ered with a hood, and they must walk five paces apart. 

02. Interviews with relatives and visitors will be permitted only with the sanction 
of the counsel of the government, who will arrange the conditions of these interviews. 

63. The chaplain of the prison is bound to visit each prisoner at least twice a week, 
and oftener if it is thought necessary. 

64. The counsel of the prisoner shall have free admission to him at all times. 

65. Persons sentenced by the court shall await the issue of their appeal, or the exe¬ 
cution of their sentence, in the cells where they were previously confined, but they 
shall be deprived of all the privileges before accorded to them. 


3. For jails: 


66. Punishment in jails shall be undergone in virtue of the imperial decree of the 
4th July, 1866. 


4. For houses of amendment: 


67. Sections 51, 52, and 62, relating to houses of justice, shall be applied to the 
houses of amendment. 

68. The prisoners shall wear the prescribed dress. 

69. The prisoners can neither smoke nor make use of their money. 

70. The prisoners will be required to work eight hours a day at task-work. Two- 
thirds of their earnings will belong to the establishment; the remaining third shall be 
placed to the credit of the prisoner, but he will not be permitted to use it till after his 
liberation. 

71. All prisoners shall have the same rations. 

72. The dimensions of the cells shall not exceed fifteen square archives. 

73. Interviews with persons from outside shall not exceed one per mouth. The visits 
of the chaplain, the doctor, the officers, and of members of philanthropic societies, are 
not subject to this regulation. 

74. Prisoners shall be permitted to work over and above their task and beyond 
the hours prescribed. The amount of this additional work shall be placed to their 
credit. 

75. Prisoners who shall have finished their terms shall be immediately liberated. 


5. For houses of correction: 

76. The term of imprisonment is from one year (minimum) to four years, (maximum,) 
without remission. 

77. The prisoner confined in a house of correction shall undergo a preliminary cel¬ 
lular imprisonment, whose duration shall be fixed by the court. If this duration is 
not mentioned in the sentence, the prisoner shall be isolated only during the legal 
term. In both cases the administration has the right to reduce the period of complete 
isolation to the minimum fixed by the law.t 

78. The system for houses of correction, in its rigor, shall be that of work in associ¬ 
ation by day and of separation by ni ght. 

79. Every person confined in a house of correction is bound to work ten hours a day 
without receiving any part of his earnings. This labor is employed in domestic serv¬ 
ice, laundry-work, and tillage. The product of this labor is applied to the support of 
the prison. 

80. The duration of this labor may be reduced to four hours a day, if the prisoner 
expresses a desire to occupy himself during the other six hours in mechanical labors 


* An archive is a Russian measure of about two-thirds of a yard, and a sagene of about 
two yards and one-third.—E. C. W. 

t This paragraph was strongly contested. Nevertheless, the opinion that a period of 
preliminary isolation is unnecessary did not obtain a majority of votes. 




REFORMS-RUSSIA. 


Ill 


which require no special knowledge. This is called “ mechanical work/’ (travail nie- 
canique.) A third of his earnings when thus engaged goes to the workman; the other 
two-thirds are to the profit of the prison. 

81. Those who do not desire to work ten hours a day at “ rough ” work, nor six hours at 
“mechanical” work, may learn any trade they prefer, which requires an effort of will 
and a sustained study. This is called “ professional work,” ( travail professionel.) Those 
who are learning a trade receive no benefit from their labor, and, in addition to eight 
hours given daily to their apprenticeship, must spend two hours ou “ rough” work. 

82. As soon as a prisoner becomes master of a trade, he shall receive two-thirds of 
all he earns ; the remaining third is applied to the profit of the prison. 

83. Any prisoner who already knows a trade on his arrival at the house of correc¬ 
tion shall receive one-half the earnings of his labor; the other half shall go to the 
profit of the establishment. 

84. The foremen and apprentices of each trade constitute a distinct section. 

85. The persons who supply constant orders to the sections are denominated cura¬ 
tors ( curateurs) of the sections. . 

Observation. —The director of the prison can have work done, in exceptional cases, 
conformably to the regulations mentioned above. 

86. The rights and duties of the guardians ( tuteurs ) of the sections shall be regulated 
by law. 

87. The curators of the sections shall settle weekly their accouuts with the director 
of the prison in cash, and the sums due to the prisoners who have become master-work- 
men, for their labor, shall be inclosed in the portfolios of each section separately. 
These portfolios shall be kept in a special case, which is itself locked up in the strong 
box of the government. 

88. The key of the case which contains the money of the prisoners shall be kept by 
the cashier, chosen by the sections. It shall be the duty of the cashier to be present at the 
weekly settlements between the curators of the sections and the sections themselves. 

89. No prisoner may keep his own money, nor exact, under any pretext, what has 
been set to his account under the name of profit. He receives only a little book, in 
which is kept the account of the product of his labor for each week. 

90. As an exceptional encouragement to industry and good conduct, one-fourth of 
their gains may be allowed to the sections for the purchase, through the agency of an 
inspector, of tea and any other authorized article. 

91. Each section will choose a chief, who shall be responsible for the order of the 
section. 

92. Each section shall be responsible for the escape of its foreman, and, in case of 
such escape, the said section shall forfeit its profits. 

93. The monitor, the inspector of the prison, and the chief shall be responsible for 
the order of each section during the hours of work. 

94. The movements of the prisoners will take place by couples, in military order, at 
the word of command and at the hours indicated. 

95. A school shall be established in every house of correction. 

96. The time spent in school shall be counted as time spent at “ rough work,” ( travail 
grossier.) 

97. On Sundays and holidays, after mass, the chaplain and the professors attached 
to the prison shall hold conferences with the prisoners ; these conferences shall relate 
to religion, sacred history, geography, and scientific subjects. 

98. During the night the prisoners shall be confined in separate cells, from which no 
one can go out without leave from the director of the prison. Silence is obligatory at 
night. The inspector is charged with the duty of supervision. The dormitories must 
be kept lighted. 

99. Interviews with relatives and strangers shall be permitted at the times indica¬ 
ted by the regulations. 

100'. When the term of the imprisonment ends, there shall be given, from the cash- 
box, to those liberated, the money earned by them, after which no interview shall be 
permitted them, under any pretext, with their former comrades. 

6. For convict-prisons: 

101. Convict-prisons shall be established for the imprisonment of all persons con¬ 
victed of felonies. 

102. The convict, who shall have merited, by his industry and good conduct, an abbre¬ 
viation of his imprisonment, may obtain it on the order ot the administration of the 
prison, but not before he shall have undergone two-thirds of his punishment. 

103. The prisoners who have not deserved an abbreviation ot their sentences shall 
undergo in the convict-prison the entire punishment to which they shall have been 

104. Those prisoners who serve out their whole time are called convicts ; those who 
have merited a shortening of their punishment receive the designation of improved. 

105. In order to a transfer from the class^of “convicts” to that of the “ improved , 


112 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


tlie prisoner, in addition to good conduct, must have earned a sum determined by the 
regulation. 

IOC. In case of ill-conduct and indolence, the “improved” prisoner is again placed in 
the class of “convicts.” 

107. The prisoner, on his admission to the convict-prison, shall be isolated from fif¬ 
teen days to a month, according to the determination of the administration. 

108. The families of prisoners are not admitted into the convict-prisons. 

109. The convict-prisons are adapted to hard labor. 

110. The work is subdivided into “hard labor” and “prison-work.” 

111. The “hard labor” is performed by the convicts in chains, which must be made 
according to the legal model; the “prison-work” is done without chains. 

Observation. —The chains may be removed, even during the execution of “ hard labor,” 
by permission of the director, in testimony of his confidence. The chains shall be 
re-imposed on those who show themselves unworthy of this indulgence. 

112. The convict-prisons should be established in localities wdiich olfer guarantees 
for hard labor, such labor constituting the punishment of the convicts. These guaran¬ 
tees are always necessary, and should be independent of accidents. 

113. The convict-prisons shall be established only in localities affording ready com¬ 
munication, or offering facilities for the sale of the products of prison labor on the 
spot. 

114. The industries for which the convict-prison is adapted may belong to the gov¬ 
ernment, or to a company or private person, if the latter can offer the requisite guar¬ 
antees. 

115. The administration of the prison shall not interfere with the industries. 

116. The convicts form only the motive-power of the industries. 

Observation. —Payment of the laborers shall be made at the times fixed by the con¬ 
tract and in cash. 

117. The places where the labor is performed shall not be more than 3-J miles distant 
from the prison. 

118. No convict can remain during the night outside of the prison inclosure. 

119. The duration of hard labor shall be fixed at twelve hours per day in summer 
and ten in winter. 

120. The administration of the prison reserves a certain number of prisoners to be 
employed, in rotation, in farm-labor, trades, and the domestic service of the prison,, 
conformably to a special regulation. 

121. Convict-labor may be of two categories: 1, obligatory, for a fixed number of 
hours per day ; 2, voluntary. 

122. The product of obligatory labor belongs to the establishment. 

123. The product of voluntary labor forms a personal income, which is paid to the- 
prisoner on his liberation. 

124. The prisoners may not engage in voluntary labor till they have finished their 
daily task of “hard labor” or “prison-labor.” 

125. The director of the prison, in conjunction with the directors of the industries, 
shall determine the tasks to be performed by the convicts. 

126. The tasks allotted shall be performed by order of the administration. 

127. The administration of the prison must see that the prisoners do the full quantity 
of work assigned. 

128. The prisoner may engage in voluntary labor on account of the director of the 
industries, or at some mecliauical occupation, as he shall elect. 

129. Prisoners under short sentences shall receive higher pay for voluntary labor than 
those sentenced to long terms. 

130. During the hours of labor, the prisoners shall be superintended by the inspect¬ 
ors, and by the chiefs of sections, chosen by themselves. The work is to be performed 
under the direction of persons charged with that duty by the directors of the industries.. 

131. According to the nature of the work, the convicts may separate into sections, 
under pledge of abstaining from all disorder. 

132. The regulations for sections in houses of correction may be adapted to convict- 
prisoners. 

133. One-fourth of the personal earnings of the convicts may be used in aiding their 
families. 

134. Between imprisonment in convict-prisons and the definitive establishment of 
the liberated prisoners in a country named by the government, the convicts will pass 
iuto a temporary establishment under the form of an agricultural penitentiary colony, 
where they may be prepared for their future abode. 

135. The penitentiary colonies shall be established in districts selected and set apart 
to be definitively peopled by liberated convicts. 

136. Criminals who have passed into the class of the “improved” shall be trans¬ 
ferred to the penitentiary colony of the government, if they have earned the sum neces¬ 
sary to colonization. Those who have not earned the requisite sum must remain im 
prison till they have, without, however, passing the term fixed by their sentence. 


REFORMS SUGGESTED—SWITZERLAND-UNITED STATES. 113 


137. The convicts sent into the penitentiary colonies of the government shall remain 
there till the date indicated by the sentence. Nevertheless, the term of the sentence 
may be reduced by the authority of the colony. Criminals who have undergone their 
entire sentence in the convict-prison must still pass one year in the colony of the 
government. 

138. Labor is obligatory in the penitentiary colonies. It must be performed accord¬ 
ing to the orders and under the direction of the authorities of the colony. 

139. Any person discharged from the penitentiary colony may choose, according to 
his liking, the place of his definitive abode, but not without the limits or the frontier 
of the same country. 

140. Prisoners sent to the colonies may be followed by their families. 

141. The laws and regulations for the colonies shall be fixed by special decree. 

The principles relating to finance and to the mode of administration proposed by this 
projet, being based on local considerations, cannot, as a matter of course, be set forth in 
the present writing. 

§ 8. The Swiss report limits itself to a short resume Of the reforms 
thought to be needed, as follows : 

1. The unification of the penal code, based on the principle of the 
moral reformation of prisoners. 

2. The reform of prisons for persons awaiting trial. 

3. The increase of the number of reformatories for juvenile delinquents 
and vicious boys, and also the reform of work-houses and houses of cor¬ 
rection for vagrants and idlers. 

4. The erection of penitentiaries in cantons which have only the old- 
fashioned prisons, which are incapable of proper transformations. Two 
or more cantons, it is thought, might come to an agreement to establish 
a penitentiary in common, or they might make arrangements with a 
canton which already has one, or found other establishments to be used 
as intermediate prisons, agreeably to the progressive Crofton prison 
system. 

5. The special education of prison officers and employes. 

6. The reform of the disciplinary and educational regime of the peni¬ 
tentiaries, with a view 7 to the moral regeneration of the prisoners. 

7. The direction and supervision, not only of the administration of all 
the prisons, but also of preventive institutions, (such as public assist¬ 
ance, orphan-houses, agricultural colonies, refuges, patronage societies, 
&c.,) in the hands of special officers of the government. 

8. The united action of the state and voluntary philanthropic societies 
and societies of public utility. 

9. Finally, the perfecting of all institutions whose aim is the preven¬ 
tion of crime, whether in the domain of education, social condition, &c., 
or that of police and of justice. 

§ 9. The tendency of thought in the United States on the question of 
prison reform is toward the Crofton system, which, in proportion as it 
is understood, is, year by year, gaining friends and adherents. No State 
has yet introduced it fully, or even its main features; but it can hardly 
be many years before this will be done. No doubt some injustice has 
been done in the United States to the cellular system, but the intro¬ 
duction of the Crofton plan may permit us to use the more desirable 
features of that system. The great evil in our minor prisons and in 
many of those of the higher grade is that there is no system at all, but 
a mixture of routine and caprice in the prison administration, from 
which good results can come only by hazard or by miracle. Particu¬ 
larly is this true in regard to female prisons, and in the whole United 
States there is scarcely a single good woman’s prison. Considering 
the number and excellence of our reformatories for girls, this is the 
more astonishing. Efforts are making in several States to establish 
special prisons for women, which will no doubt prove successful in the 
end: and, in some, the day for this reform hastens. 

H. Ex. 185-8 



114 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


CHAPTER XY. 

JUVENILE REFORMATORIES. 

Most of the sets of questions sent out did not, through a mischance 
in the office where they were printed, contain any interrogatory relating 
to juvenile reformatories. This fact will account for the small number 
of countries which furnished the congress with information on this 
most important branch of the work looking to the prevention of crime. 

§ 1. In Denmark there are three educational establishments for neg¬ 
lected and misguided boys, with an aggregate of about one hundred and 
sixty inmates. Besides these, tlmre is a society which undertakes to 
have children placed in families. The latter has worked with great suc¬ 
cess. 

§ 2. Saxony has had, for above a generation, two- reformatories for 
the education and reformation of children of both sexes, besides a house 
of correction for young persons aged from sixteen to twenty years. 

The industrial occupation in these houses is agriculture, but mechan¬ 
ical occupation for the wants of the reformatory itself is not excluded. 
The admission of children takes place mostly at the request of their 
relations, of societies, or of police authorities, who are asked to contribute 
a small sum of money. Children up to twelve years, and young persons 
up to eighteen years of age, are placed under this reformatory treatment. 
According to age, school-instruction, occupation in the field and garden, 
and domestic work are the means of education. At the proper time, those 
promoted for good conduct are first sent into agricultural or domestic 
service, or apprenticed to tradesmen, under proper supervision, by the 
authorities of the reformatory. Conditional liberation must, as a rule, 
precede complete freedom. Well-disposed inmates of the reformatories, 
of the age of less than twelve years, are sent to board in carefully-chosen 
families, the reformatory paying for the board. Even these have to 
undergo a period of conditional liberation before attaining full freedom. 
The term of probation for children is at least two years ; that of young 
people, one year. The results obtained in these reformatories, since 
1856, have shown that such as were liberated after a probationary period, 
and who on account of relapse were sent again into the penitentiary, 
amounted to only 7 per cent. Reformatories and houses of safety, 
(asylums,) established and supported by societies or by associations, 
endeavor to reform neglected children by giving them domestic disci¬ 
pline and separate or public schooling. They mostly keep the children 
till they are fourteen years of age. Unmanageable children are sent for 
further education to the above-mentioned state reformatories. The num¬ 
ber admitted into the state reformatories amounted, in the year 1871, 
to three hundred and forty-five children and to thirty one young per¬ 
sons. The number of inmates in asylums, &e., during the year 1871, 
is estimated to be about two hundred. 

§3. The establishments devoted to the correctional education of juve¬ 
nile delinquents in France receive minors of sixteen years and under, of 
both sexes. They are divided, for young male prisoners, in to penitentiary 
colonies and correctional colonies. In the first are placed : 1, children 
acquitted ashavingacted without knowledge, but who are not sent back to 
their parents; 2, young prisoners sentenced to an imprisonment of more 
than six months and not exceeding two years. These establishments 
are public or private: public when they have been founded by the state, and 
the state names and pays the directors and employes; and private when 


REFORMATORIES-FRANCE-ITALY-SWITZERLAND, ETC. 115 

tliey are founded and directed by private persons, with the authoriza¬ 
tion of the state. The correctional colonies receive: 1, young prison¬ 
ers sentenced to an imprisonment of more than two years; 2, young 
prisoners from the penitentiary colonies who have been declared insub¬ 
ordinate. The correctional colonies are all public establishments. 

A similar classification has been established for young female prison¬ 
ers. They are received either in a correctional ward directed by the 
state, or into penitentiary houses connected with religious establishments. 
Gt* penitentiary and correctional colonies for boys, the number is thirty- 
two, three being public colonies, four correctional wards, and twenty- 
five private colonies. Of establishments devoted to young female pris¬ 
oners, there are twenty, one of which is directed by the state; the rest 
are private. 

§ 4. The number of reformatories in Italy is thirty-three, of which 
twenty-two are for boys and nine for girls. They are rather of an educa¬ 
tive than punitive nature. They are entirely private in their charac¬ 
ter, having been instituted either by individual benevolence or by 
charitable associations. Government makes use of them for those 
juveniles who fall under the censure of police-law (pubblica sicurezza) for 
idleness or vagrancy; also, for the detention of those who are placed in 
them for correction by paternal authority. Of these establishments, 
twenty-five are industrial and six agricultural. Their discipline not being 
as severe as that in the houses of custody, government makes use of 
them also as a reward, gathering into them those minors who, having 
been overtaken by penal law, have shown ah exemplary behavior. 

The average number of juveniles sheltered in the reformatories in 
1870 was 2,268, of whom 1,895 were boys and 373 girls. The total 
number on the 31st December, of the same year, was 2,465, of whom 
2,066 were boys and 399 girls, thus classified: For idleness and vagrancy, 
boys, 1,931; girls, 399. Paternal discipline, boys, 135; girl, 0. Parents 
are under no obligation to provide for the maintenance of a child who is 
confined in a reformatory for idleness or vagrancy; but when a father 
places him in one of these establishments for correction, the state 
charges him with 36 cents per day. He is, however, exonerated in part 
or entirely from his charge, if he can prove himself indigent. 

§ 5. The number of reformatory institutions in Switzerland destined 
to the treatment of juvenile delinquents is seventy, besides certain es¬ 
tablishments founded by Messrs. Kichter-Linder, Zellweger, and others, 
the number of which is not stated. Only four of these have been founded 
by the state; all the rest by charitable citizens, by societies of public 
utility, or by religious and philanthropic associations. The average 
number of inmates in these establishments in 1870 was 2,573, of whom 
1,472 were boys and 1,101 girls. 

§ 6. The first American reformatory, and still the largest one, was the 
New York House of Refuge, opened in 1825. It grew out of the efforts 
made by Edward Livingston and other enlightened philanthrophists, 
to train the young in cities to a life of honest industry. In 1826, a 
similar reformatory was opened in Boston; and in 1828, another in Phila¬ 
delphia. All these establishments received boys under sentence, and 
were supported, in whole or in part, by grants from the public revenue. 
They "were not managed by the State directly, however, nor did they 
become a component part of the penal system of the State where they 
existed. The first step in this direction was taken by Massachusetts, in 
1847, when the State Reform School at Westborough was established 
by law. Since 1847—that is, in the last twenty-five years—the policy 
thus initiated has been carried far forward, and is now adopted in more 


116 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


than half the States of the Union. Reformatories, either wholly depend¬ 
ent on the States or materially aided by them, exist now in Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, District of Columbia, 
Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California, 
■while other semi-public reformatories, under municipal or private man¬ 
agement, are found in these States, and in Missouri, Kentucky, Loui¬ 
siana, &c., that is, in States containing an aggregate of at least 25,000,000 
people. The number of large reformatories in these States must exceed 
forty, while the smaller establishments are still more numerous. The 
average number of reformatory pupils, in 1871, cannot have been less 
than 12,000, of whom more than 1,000 were girls; nor does this include 
the strictly educational or preventive establishments, like the State 
Primary School for poor children, at Mouson, Massachusetts, the Boston 
Harm School, and many other such schools, in which it is probable there 
are as many more children, (say 12,000,) in all parts of the country. 

The general results of these reformatory and preventive schools are 
good, as has been intimated. Of the estimated 12,000 in reformatories, 
strictly so termed, at least 00 per cent, will probably be trained into good 
citizens. Some would claim more than this, say 75 or 80 per cent., but 
there are no statistics that quite bear out this claim. Perhaps the per¬ 
centage of worthy citizens trained up among the whole 24,000 in preven¬ 
tive and reformatory schools w T ould be as high as 75. 

In some of the States, parents may be held responsible for the support 
of their children in reformatories, at least in part, but this provision of law 
is seldom enforced. A large majority of the children are either orphans, 
abandoned children, or of such poor parents that little or nothing can 
be collected from them. In some of the private Catholic reformatories, 
it is understood that the payment of board by parents and kindred is 
strictly enforced, so far as practicable. There is, however, far less de¬ 
sire to throw children on the public for support, in this manner, in 
America than in England or France. 

§ 7. An extended and very satisfactory paper on the reformatory sys¬ 
tem of Great Britain was furnished by liev. Sydney Turner, inspector 
of reformatory and industrial schools. The substance of this paper, 
slightly modified, is given below. 

The reformatory system of Great Britain was not created by the laws 
which now regulate its operation, but w r as itself the occasion and source 
of those law r s. The condition of the younger classes of criminals engaged 
the attention of many persons interested in the social improvement of the 
community for many years before any changes were effected in the laws 
relating to them. It was not until the efforts of private zeal and 
benevolence had shown, by actual experiment, that reformatory schools 
could be established and worked successfully, that the legislature was 
induced to pass the acts which gave such schools their present recog¬ 
nized status, sanctioned their being largely supported by the government, 
and allowed magistrates to send children for detention in them. 

About a century ago a charitable association, called the Philanthropic 
Society, founded a school for the reform of juvenile delinquents and for 
the protection and training of the destitute children of convicts, in the 
neighborhood of London. This was followed at a later period by two 
or three somewhat similar institutions in London and elsewhere, of which 
one, a small school at Stretton-on-Duusmore, in Warwickshire, was 
remarkable as the first at which it was attempted to ingraft farm and 
out door labor into the industrial training of the inmates. 

In 1838, an act was passed for the establishment of a separate prison 


REFORMATORIES-ENGLAND. 


117 


for offenders under the age of sixteen, at Parkhurst, in the Isle of Wight. 
Land was attached to this for cultivation by the inmates, and the dis¬ 
cipline was intended to be of a specially educational and reformatory 
character. By a clause in this act, the Queen was empowered to grant 
pardons to such young offenders as might be desirous of an opportunity 
of reformation, on condition of their entering some benevolent insti¬ 
tution of the reformatory class, remaining in it, and being subject to 
its regulations till duly discharged therefrom, tinder this clause a con¬ 
siderable number of young offenders under sentence of transportation 
or imprisonment were received into such reformatory institutions as then 
existed. 

In 1847, the attention of the managers of the Philanthropic Society was 
drawn to the remarkable effort of Monsieur Demetz and others in France, 
for the establishment of an agricultural reformatory, without walls or 
sentries, for French juvenile delinquents, at Mettray, near Tours. Being 
then the superintendent or director of the Philanthropic Institution, Mr. 
Turner visited Mettray, reported on its arrangements and system of 
management, and induced the directors and supporters of the society to 
attempt a similar experiment in England. The Philanthropic Farm 
School at Redhill, Surrey, which Mr. Turner thus established and organ¬ 
ized, and which he directed until appointed, in 1857, to the office of in¬ 
spector of reformatories, was the fruit of this movement. It was fol¬ 
lowed by smaller schools on similar principles of domestic management— 
absence of walls and warders and the use of out door employment— 
founded by Mr. Barwick Baker, at Hardwicke, in Gloucestershire; Mr. 
Adderley and Mr. Joseph Sturge, near Birmingham; Mr. Compton, in 
Ha mpshire; and Miss Carpenter, at Bristol. 

The additional impulse thus given to the public interest in the ques¬ 
tion u how juvenile delinquency should be dealt with” led to the assem¬ 
bling of a conference at Birmingham of those most interested in the 
subject in 1853, and the results of this were the reformatory schools act 
for Great Britain and the industrial schools act for Scotland of 1854. 

Glider the first of these, which was brought in by Mr. (now the Right 
Honorable Sir Charles) Adderley, the secretary of state was empowered 
to license reformatory schools approved by him and to make an allow¬ 
ance for the maintenance of the young offenders committed for deten¬ 
tion in them. Powers were given to courts of assize and quarter 
sessions, and to two magistrates acting in petty sessions, or to any sti¬ 
pendiary magistrate, acting alone, to commit young offenders, under six¬ 
teen years of age, to such schools for any term of detention, not less 
than two nor more than five years. The managers of the schools were 
invested with the necessary powers of control, and the inspection and 
general supervision of the schools by the secretary of the home depart¬ 
ment were provided for. 

Under the second act, introduced by the late Mr. Dunlop, destitute 
and vagrant children, under fourteen years old, in Scotland, were simi¬ 
larly provided for in industrial and ragged schools. Such schools were 
partly under the supervision of the committee of education of the privy 
council and received what government aid they had from the education- 
grant. 

In the same year, 1854, a special act was obtained by the magistrates 
of the county of Middlesex, enabling them to erect an industrial school 
for that county, (including the greater pant of London,) to which young 
offenders under fourteen years of age might be committed for three 
years’ detention. The school erected under this act has since been cer¬ 
tified under the general act of 1800. 


118 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


A most valuable provision in both the acts allows of the inmates of 
the schools being placed out on probation before the expiration of their 
sentence of detention under a license from the managers of the school, 
liable to be revoked for misconduct. 

The prison authorities of counties and boroughs are empowered to 
contribute to the schools by grants 'from the county or borough rates. 
Such grants in 1870 exceeded £40,000. The schools are in general more 
or less aided also by voluntary contributions. 

The results of both the reformatory and the industrial schools have 
been very encouraging. In many schools of either class 80 per cent, 
and upward of the inmates have turned out well after their discharge, 
and the general average for all has reached nearly 70. These re¬ 
sults are taken from the returns which the managers of each school 
have to make for the three years succeeding each inmate’s discharge of 
his or her character and circumstances. They would certainly be still 
more favorable if there were more effectual powers in the acts for re¬ 
straining the after-interference of the child's friends and relatives. 

The results of the operations of the reformatory and industrial schools 
must not, however, be judged of only by the proportion of those received 
into them who turn out afterward honest and industrious, reformed from 
the criminal habits or weaned from the vagrant disorderly dispositions 
with which they were growing up to be dangerous in themselves and 
instruments for corrupting others. 

The results are seen still more decisively in the diminution of the 
numbers of the younger classes of criminals and the lighter character 
of the crimes with which our juvenile offenders are now more commonly 
convicted. 

In the year 1856, when the reformatory school system. began to be 
in more active operation, the number of juvenile offenders (i. <?., bdys 
and girls under sixteen years old) committed to prison (for the twelve 
mouths ended September 29) was 13,981 • in 1858, when the system 
had spread and taken root, the number sank to 7,622 • and in 1870, in 
spite of the very large increase of our population, and especially of the 
population of our larger towns, from which juvenile crime draws its 
most numerous recruits, the number of young offenders committed was 
but 9,998, the number of adult commitments having advanced from 
99,755, in 1856, to 147,225, in 1870—an increase of above 50 per cent. 

There is no doubt that the reformatory school system, laying hold on 
and placing under long corrective discipline and training the boys and 
girls who had become familiar with crime and adepts in its practice, 
not only in a majority of cases reformed the individual, but broke up 
those schools of crime and vice which were becoming so formidable. 
The change in the type or character of the young offenders themselves, 
who are laid hold of by the system, is as remarkable as the falling off in 
their numbers. The clever, experienced pickpocket, with his five or six 
satellites or apprentices, convicted, perhaps, six or seven times, and 
laughing at the offers of repentance and the opportunities of honest life 
offered to him, has disappeared. The inmates of the reformatories are 
now chiefly untrained or ill-trained children, with little criminal science, 
and generally much more dull and indolent than sharp or active, the 
products of neglected education and loose home discipline rather than 
of criminal training or of special criminal disposition. 

The results of the industrial schools so far tend in the same direction, 
the extinction, that is, of the vagabond and half-thievish class they wero 
originally designed to deal with, and the substitution in its stead of 
merely poor and neglected children, a large proportion of whom might 


REFORMATORIES-ENGLAND. 


119 


be effectually eared for by a good system of day-feeding- schools— 
schools in which they might be kept throughout the day, so as to be 
taken out of the streets, and the oversight and training supplied which 
the circumstances and employments of their parents prevent them from 
receiving at home. 

The whole number of young offenders committed to reformatory 
schools since the passing of the first reformatory schools act in 1854 
amounted at the end of 1870 to 21,991 in Great Britain, and, of children 
sent to industrial schools, to 14,451. 

The reformatory schools act was amended by successive statutes in 
1855 and 185G, and an industrial schools act was passed for England in 
1857 and amended and enlarged in 1861. By this last act industrial 
schools for both England and Scotland were placed under the home 
office, and an allowance for the maintenance of the inmates from the 
treasury, similar to that given to reformatory schools, provided for. 
In I860 the reformatory and industrial schools acts, now in force, were 
passed, and the system now in operation finally sanctioned and defined, 
similar but separate statutes being enacted for Ireland in 1858 and 1808. 

Under these acts, the number of reformatory schools in G reat Britain 
had increased by December 31, 1870, to 64, containing 5,433 actual in¬ 
mates, and that of industrial schools to 91, containing 8,280 inmates. 
Adding to those the numbers who were out on license or absent by de¬ 
sertion, &c., the total number of young offenders under sentence of de¬ 
tention in reformatories was 6,562, and of children sent to industrial 
schools was 8,788. 

The distinction between reformatory and industrial schools is that 
the first are more directly for correction and the second for prevention. 
No boy or girl can be committed to a reformatory school unless con¬ 
victed of some positive offense, punishable by imprisonment or penal 
servitude, and sent in the first instance for not less than ten days to jail. 
They must be under sixteen years of age and above ten years, unless 
previously convicted or sentenced at a superior court. 

On the other baud, the industrial school is for destitute and vagrant 
children, found begging or wandering, without home or visible means of 
subsistence or proper guardianship. Such children must be under 
fourteen years old, and they are sent direct to the school, and do 
not pass, through the jail. Children uncontrollable by their parents 
can be sent to them on their parents’ application, but for such children 
the treasury allowance is limited to two-shillings per week. Children 
under twelve years old, who are guilty of any petty offense, can be also 
sent to them, instead of being committed to prison and a reformatory, 
at the magistrate’s discretion. 

The allowance from the treasury for inmates of reformatories is six 
shillings per week ; for inmates of industrial schools above ten years 
old, five shillings; under ten years, three shillings. For the year 1870 
the total amount of the treasury payments was £177,384, the total ex¬ 
penditure of the schools being £311,794. 

The fundamental principles ou which the reformatory system is based 
are thus stated by Mr. Turner: 

1. The tenion of private and benevolent agency icith government super¬ 
vision and support. 

All the reformatory schools, and, with two exceptions, all the indus¬ 
trial schools now in operation, have been established and were at first 
materially supported by voluntary contributions. Many of them still 
derive a portion of their income from private sources, and all are man 


120 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


aged by committees or individuals appointed by tbe subscribers and 
contributors by whom they w r ere founded. 

The government interferes as little as possible with the ordinary su¬ 
perintendence, prescribing certain regulations as to the lodging, cloth¬ 
ing, and feeding of the inmates of the schools, and as to the instruction 
they receive and the discipline they are subjected to; but leaving all 
the details of the management, the appointment of the officers, the 
admission of inmates, the expenditure, &c., to the committee. The 
state may be said to contract on certain terms with the several insti¬ 
tutions for the work which it wants done, and so long as the work is 
fairly performed it exercises no further interference. 

Important advantages accrue from this arrangement. A far greater 
degree of freedom and elasticity is secured to the working of the sys¬ 
tem 5 much of the merely mechanical routine which is inseparable from 
government establishments is dispensed with ; the schools are more 
thoroughly adapted to the different localities they are planted in ; a 
greater variety of moral and social influences is brought to bear upon 
their inmates j religious interest and zeal, without which little impres¬ 
sion can be hoped for, are enlisted ; and economy in the expenditure and 
efficiency in the industrial training of the schools are more thoroughly 
insured. Two advantages, not otherwise attainable, are especially se¬ 
cured : the one, the freedom of the religious teaching of the inmates; 
the other, their disposal in the world when discharged from the schools. 

If the state founded and administered the schools, what is called the 
religious difficulty would be met with at the very outset, and each dif¬ 
fering section of the religious community would be struggling for the 
assertion of its own peculiar views and practices, or protesting against 
those of others. But all this is avoided by the employment of the vol¬ 
untary system under government supervision and through government 
aid. 

Reformatory or industrial schools may be established in connection 
with any of our different religious bodies, and, in point of fact, we have 
schools founded and managed by Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and 
members of the Society of Friends. But the law secures the religious 
rights and liberties of the children by enacting that, if the managers of 
any school receive a child of a different religious denomination from that 
of the school, they shall allow a minister of the child's denomination to 
attend and instruct it, aud the rules, which are sanctioned by tbe secre¬ 
tary of state, prescribe that such a child shall not be required to learn 
the catechism or to be instructed in the doctrines of any other persua¬ 
sion than its own. The same rules provide generally that the children 
in the school shall receive daily religious instruction agreeably to the 
denomination of the school, and shall have regular opportunities of 
worship on the Sunday. 

The other advantage following the mingling of public and private 
agency in the reformatory system is the better and easier disposal of 
the inmates on their discharge. If the schools were administered by 
the state, it is believed that they must inevitably take more or less of 
the form and complexion of prisons, and the boys and girls discharged 
from them would be looked on with the same sort of distrust and sus¬ 
picion that attach to discharged convicts. 

2. A second essential principle of the English reformatory system is the 
me of moral in preference to physical discipline . 

The institutions are organized and carried on essentially as schools , 
not houses of couflneineut or correction, the greatest degree of per¬ 
sonal liberty and freedom of action being allowed that is compatible 
with real personal supervision aud the exaction of prompt and strict 


REFORMATORIES-ENGLAND. 


121 


obedience. Most of the reformatories are founded on the plan of farm- 
schools, with agricultural labor as the chief employment. There are no 
walls, no warders, no sentries. The men who have charge of the work¬ 
ing parties usually work with the boys, guiding and instructing them 
in their labor, while they overlook them and report on them as to their 
conduct. The boys are taught to hold themselves responsible, and to 
regulate their own conduct as far as possible by a system of rewards 
(or marks) for labor and improvement, and fines for misconduct and 
idleness, which they are fully acquainted with, and by acting on which 
they can increase the comforts of their position, avoid punishment, and 
effectively advance their final liberation. Every inmate of a reforma¬ 
tory or industrial school is allowed free communication with his rela¬ 
tives, and, if they are of tolerably good character, is allowed from time 
to time to visit them. The cases in which this privilege has been 
abused and advantage taken of the leave to abscond from the school 
have been and are very rare indeed. 

3. It is an essential characteristic of the reformatory system that the 
schools have a thoroughly religious character , 

There are none of the class called secular. Religious teaching is an 
essential feature of the instruction. The superintendents have hitherto 
been generally personally religious agents, capable of taking, and ac¬ 
customed to take, an active part in the scriptural instruction and daily 
worship. In the majority of the schools, the Bible is the recognized 
source and chief instrument of the religious teaching, the catechism 
not being required. 

4 . Great stress is laid on the industrial training. 

In the reformatory schools more especially, regular daily labor in the 
field or workshop, or for girls in the laundry, the house, or the needle- 
room, is insisted on; the working-time being generally from six to 
eight hours per day. The employments of the inmates in industrial 
schools are necessarily less laborious, the children being usually much 
younger, but the same principle is kept in view, that, as the evil to be 
cured has been always more or less the result of idleness and license, 
the remedy must especially prescribe and provide for labor and exer¬ 
tion, and the self-restraint which these require. 

5. The importance of supervision and occasional assistance after the in¬ 
mates have left the schools , and while they are making good their footing in 
the world , is fully recognized. 

They are, as a rule, carefully kept in view and reported on, and, where 
necessary, aid afforded them. The differences which the annual reports 
and returns show in the success with which the operations of the schools 
have been conducted may generally be traced, more or less, to the differ¬ 
ent degree in which this after-supervision has been maintained. 

6 . It is a fundamental principle of the system that the responsibility of 
the child's parents to provide for its maintenance and training should be 
enforced. 

This is a feature peculiar to the system as carried out in Great Britain, 
and has, undoubtedly, materially secured it from becoming a source of 
injury to the community at large. 

The parents of each child committed to a reformatory or industrial 
school (if it has any alive) are summoned before a magistrate, their 
circumstances inquired into, and a payment toward the child’s mainte¬ 
nance enforced, proportioned to their means in every possible case. The 
acts allow of this payment being assessed as high as five shillings per 
week, but, as a rule, the contributions are rarely higher than from one 
to three shillings. In a large number of cases, especially as regards the 


122 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


children in industrial schools, the parents are too poor to pay; many are 
widows, themselves almost wholly destitute, and such are, of course, 
excused. Many of the children are also orphans. But a very consid¬ 
erable proportion of parents are brought under contribution, and the 
amounts thus obtained have steadily increased, and now reach nearly 
£10,000 a year. The enforcing of these contributions is a part of the 
business of the inspector, who has a staff of assistants appointed for 
the purpose. It is chiefly carried out through the police authorities of 
the district in which the parents reside, by whom the payments are 
received and transmitted to the inspector, to be paid over to the treasury. 

The justice and necessity of this part of the system are evident. No 
parent has a right to escape his share of the penalties of his child’s 
misconduct, too often the fruit of his own neglect or dissolute conduct; 
and but for some such check, the temptation to the parent of shifting 
the burden of his child’s support and education on the public would 
increase the number of candidates for reformatory training faster than 
the means of providing it could be supplied. The disease would be 
spread by the very means employed to remedy it, and the charge on the 
treasury, that is, eventually on all classes of tax-payers, would become 
insupportable. It is held in England that no system of reformatory 
training can be adopted with justice or safety to the community at large 
in which this element is omitted. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

STATE OF PRISONS IN SUCH OF TIIE BRITISH POSSESSIONS AS WERE 
REPRESENTED IN THE CONGRESS. 

Reports on prison discipline as it now exists in India, Ceylon, Vic¬ 
toria, and Jamaica were submitted to the congress by delegates present 
from those countries. They were, however, not framed on the same 
plan as the reports whose substance has been given in the preceding 
chapters, and the information contained in them could not, therefore, be 
embodied with that furnished by said reports. A separate chapter is, 
consequently, devoted to a resume of their contents. 

§ 1. India .—Little special legislation has been given in India to pris¬ 
ons and prison systems. Prison regulations have been made, for the 
most part, without any direct sanction of law. Of the few prison acts 
which have been passed, none lays down any broad principles of prison 
discipline. One of them, however, that of 1834, contains some import¬ 
ant provisions: it abolishes corporal punishment, substitutes fines in 
certain cases for labor, and empowers the government to introduce by 
degrees a reformatory prison discipline. 

Nearly every presidency and province of India has its own special 
jail code. That of Bengal provides for a system of rewards to be given 
to well-conducted prisoners. There has also been established, for all 
India, a system of remission of sentence in reward of good conduct. 

In the whole of India there was, in round numbers, in 1870, a daily 
average of 64,600 prisoners, including the life-convicts at Port Blair. 
There were, in the same year, two hundred and twenty eight jails and 
an indefinite number of lock-ups. Of these prisons two are entirely 
cellular; the remainder are built on every conceivable plan, a large num¬ 
ber of them being miserable mud-structures, which are constantly 



STATE OF PRISONS-INDIA. 


123 


washed away by heavy rains. In most of them male and female prison¬ 
ers are separated at night. All work is in association, with the excep¬ 
tion of cases of disciplinary punishment. There are sixteen central jails, 
intended for prisoners sentenced to an imprisonment of more than a 
year, but this intention is not rigidly observed. There are no reforma¬ 
tories, and but two special prisons for women. Until recently there 
were no female warders, and even now they are not found in all the 
jails. Prison officers, as a rule, are incompetent, corrupt, and under¬ 
paid, and no systematic effort is made to remedy this state of tilings. 
The annual cost of prisoners per capita is about $30. Economy is prac¬ 
tised at the expense of efficiency. Greater attention is paid to the dim¬ 
inution of expenditure than to the carrying out of any sound and sensi¬ 
ble system of prison discipline. 

There is little cell-accommodation—scarcely enough for the punish¬ 
ment of breaches of prison regulations—nor is there any system of class¬ 
ifying the prisoners of any practical value. No general measures of 
reform are possible till this state of things is remedied. 

Imprisonment for debt still exists in India, but separate accommoda¬ 
tion is provided for imprisoned debtors, and they are in all respects 
treated with humanity and a due consideration of their rights and 
necessities. 

Much attention has recently been paid in India to prison statistics 
and the results obtained form the most reliable collection of facts in 
existence relating to the civil state of the British Empire in the east. 
The information gathered is divided into three categories—judicial, 
financial, and vital—and under each head a few of the most salient points 
of interest are noted. The vital statistics of the prisons of Lower Ben¬ 
gal since 1867 have been drawn up in the manner suggested by Dr. 
Farr, the president of the Statistical Society of London, than whom no 
higher authority exists. They show the average number of prisoners 
in custody, the number and causes of deaths, sickness and death- 
rates, average terms of sentence, duration of imprisonment, &c., &c. 
In addition, the Bengal returns contain facts connected with age, 
sex, caste, religion, occupation prior to and during imprisonment, 
sentence, dietaries, state of health on admission and discharge, and 
the locality of imprisonment in its influence on sickness and mortality. 

Originally the chief occupation of prisoners in India was extramural, 
either in making imperial roads or in station-improvements. Subse¬ 
quently remunerative industrial labor was introduced, and each prisoner 
had a task assigned him equal in amount to that performed by a fairly 
skilled artisan of the same class. It is sought to make it as much as possi¬ 
ble an instrument of reformation, which is accomplished by teaching 
each convict some handicraft that will enable him to earn an honest liv¬ 
ing on his release, and by inculcating habits of industry that will coun¬ 
teract the idleness that is the proximate cause of much of the vice that 
leads to crime. 

Industrial labor is the basis of the Indian system, although within 
the last two years out-door work has been revived, and large gangs of 
convicts are now employed on the canals; a system which, on moral 
grounds, must be considered a retrograde measure. 

Prison dietaries in India have been arranged with a view to giving all 
that is really required for health and strength, and withholding .every¬ 
thing that would place the prisoner in a better condition than the poor 
and honest in his own walk of life. The hospital dietary is unrestricted. 
A penal dietary, for serious breaches of prison discipline and for short¬ 
term prisoners, has also been introduced. The other punishments ein- 


124 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


ployed for prison offenses are fetters, separate confinement, flogging, 
and penal labor. Separate confinement cannot always be resorted to, 
on account of inadequate cell-accommodations, so that flogging is em¬ 
ployed to an extent that is lamentable. 

Education— i. e ., instruction combined with moral and religious train¬ 
ing—is unknown in Indian jails. Religious acts and observances are prac¬ 
tically forbidden to native prisoners, for whom no ministration is or can 
be provided. Christian prisoners have the aid of pastors, and other 
prisoners may obtain similar aid on application. Proselytizing* by 
Christian missionaries is, however, peremptorily prohibited. For secu¬ 
lar instruction no special provision is made, though much has been done 
by zealous individual officers in the way of primary instruction. 

One of the chief peculiarities of Indian prison management is the em¬ 
ployment of convict agency. The small salaries allowed render it dif¬ 
ficult to procure suitable persons as prison keepers. This led to the trial, 
many years since, of well-behaved, long-term prisoners in this capacity. 
So successful was the experiment that the practice has now been ex¬ 
tended to the whole of India, special provision for it having been intro¬ 
duced in all the jail codes. As a reward for good conduct and strict 
obedience to prison rules, all convicts whose behavior has been exem¬ 
plary throughout, and who have completed the prescribed term of hard 
labor, are eligible for the offices of convict-warder, guard, and work- 
overseer, which offices can never exceed 10 per cent, of the criminals in 
custody. The financial and reformatory results of this system have been 
satisfactory. It teaches self-respect and self-control, and few prisoners 
who have held such offices have relapsed into crime. 

There are no prisoners’ aid societies in India. In the large stations, 
a few philanthropic individuals occasionally interest themselves in the 
matter, but the constant changes in Indian society have rendered con¬ 
tinual and combined action impossible. Convict artisans, trained in jail, 
find no difficult}" in obtaining employment, and few who have attained 
any degree of skill ever return to prison. 

The governors of provinces and the viceroy of India possess absolute 
power of pardon, but such powers are never exercised without careful 
inquiry, and grave deliberation. 

To nearly every prison is attached a garden, wherein are raised the 
vegetables and fruit required for prison consumption, any balance over 
and above the prison wants being sold. The chief object of the garden, 
however, is to counteract the scorbutic tendency of sedentary employ¬ 
ment in work-sheds, by affording a wholesome amount of out-door occu¬ 
pation in useful directions. 

§ 2. Ceylon .—The principal prison upon the island in Ceylon is that 
at Wellikada, an account of which was prepared for the congress by Mr. 
H. J. Duval, inspector-general. Here separate confinement with rigor¬ 
ously penal labor is enforced during the whole term of short sentences 
and the first six months of long sentences. Long terms of imprisonment 
are divided into three stages, called, respectively, the penal, secondarj", 
and upper stage. 

On admission, every prisoner is placed in the penal stage, there to pass 
the first six months, in the case of a long sentence, or the whole term, in 
that of a short one. No part of this stage is remissible, but it may be 
prolonged by misconduct. This stage is found to exercise a most bene¬ 
ficial influence in subduing the prisoners, and preparing them for the 
next. In the case of short-term men, it is highly deterrent. 

At the termination of the penal stage, prisoners are removed into the 
secondary or industrial hard-labor stage. Here the mark system begins. 


STATE OF PRISONS-CEYLON-JAMAICA. 


125 


Each convict is debited with a number of marks corresponding to the 
number of days in his sentence, minus the first stage. By industry and 
good conduct, he may earn nine marks per week, and this maximum 
continued will close his mark account at seven-ninths of the period, the 
remaining two-ninths being remitted. If he earn only eight marks weekly 
the reduction of time is only one-ninth. 

Breaches of discipline are rare. The punishments employed are for¬ 
feiture of marks, a return to the penal stage, and flogging, which latter, 
however, is never used except in cases of mutiny, and the number of 
lashes never exceeds twelve. The wholesome dread of a return to the 
penal stage is usually sufficient to stimulate the convicts to industry and 
obedience. In this stage, they are employed at such hard labor as they 
may be fitted for by their previous habits and occupation in life, the 
object being to make their labor as productive as possible. 

lieligious instruction cannot possibly be general in a country settled 
by many races, professing a multitude of religious or superstitious creeds. 
At the large prisons, the ministers and native catechists of various mis¬ 
sionary bodies hold service on Sunday, but attendance on these minis¬ 
trations is optional with the prisoners. Native school-masters also give 
instruction in the vernacular languages on each Sunday afternoon ; but, 
attendance at school being optional, few avail themselves of the offered 
instruction, the great majority preferring to spend the day in idleness. 

The third or upper stage is a privilege awarded only to the few. 
Prisoners who have served at least two-thirds of their sentence, and 
who have, while in the industrial stage, distinguished themselves as 
good prisoners and skillful workmen, are promoted to be prison consta¬ 
bles, their duties being to assist the subordinate officers in the mainte¬ 
nance of order and discipline in the prison. When employed on public 
works, they act in the capacity of foremen, being generally selected 
with a view to their fitness for such work. While holding this appoint¬ 
ment, they are credited with one rupee per month, which is paid to them 
on discharge from prison. 

§ 3. Jamaica .—On the island of Jamaica there are four classes of pris¬ 
ons: 1st, the general penitentiary ; 2d, county jails; 3d, district prisons; 
4th, short-term prisons. To the first of these establishments are sent 
all convicts whose term of sentence exceeds twelve months and all soldiers 
and sailors condemned by court-martial. The labor is both penal and in¬ 
dustrial. The tread mill is made slightly remunerative by being attached 
to a mill for grinding corn. Prisoners, when not at work on the tread¬ 
mill, are employed in quarrying and cutting stone, and as brick-makers, 
lime-burners, carpenters, coopers, masons, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, tailors, 
shoe-makers, &c., under the instruction of competent tradesmen employed 
for that purpose, and supervised by an intelligent overseer of works from 
England. The convicts work in association, but in silence. The women 
are employed in the domestic work of the prison and in picking coir. 

The diet is designed to keep the prisoners in good health, but without 
pampering them. The cost per diem for each convict during the past 
year was a little more than 3JJ. 

A clergyman of the church of England is employed as chaplain, but 
all prisoners are allowed to see the clergy of the denomination to which 
they may belong. 

The reward for good conduct, awarded to all prisoners except recidi¬ 
vists and those guilty of a peculiar class of crimes, is promotion to the 
u license-class,a position much coveted, and to which a convict is eligi¬ 
ble after having satisfactorily served half his time. This promotion 
carries with it a remission of one-fourth of the original sentence. 


126 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


The punishments employed in the case of males consist of degradation 
from the u license-class,” solitary confinement on bread and water, and, 
in exceptional cases, the cat, which, however, is never administered 
except with the approbation of the governor of the island, to whom is 
sent a full statement of the case. The only punishments for women are 
solitary confinement on bread aud water and degradation from or de¬ 
nial of admittance to the license-class. This degradation, whether in 
the case of men or women, involves the loss of all the time earned by 
the prisoner through good conduct. So wholesome a dread is felt by 
the convicts of this penalty that it has not been found necessary to in¬ 
flict itin a solitary instance during the last two years. 

The county jails are used chiefly for the confinement of debtors and 
persons awaiting trial. They are employed as places of punishment 
only for misdemeanants. No labor is carried on. 

In the district prisons (five in number) are confined prisoners whose 
sentence does not exceed twelve months. The inmates are visited daily 
by a government medical officer, and by the inspector of prisons not less 
than once in three months. The magistrates of the parish also act as 
official visitors, and have power to inflict punishment —L e., to sentence 
to solitary confinement on bread and water. The nearest clergyman 
acts as chaplain on Sundays. The prisoners are confined in association 
wards, the only separation being that of the sexes. 

The short-term prisons (of which there are also five) are designed to 
supplement the district prisons, by obviating the necessity of sending 
petty criminals twenty or thirty miles to undergo a sentence of a few 
days’ duratiou,the whole of which was before their establishment some¬ 
times occupied in making the journey. Prisoners may be received into 
these prisons for periods not exceeding sixty days. They are supervised 
by a sergeant of constabulary, whose wife acts as matron, and by a task¬ 
master. They are employed on the main roads breaking stones aud 
picking coir. 

The inspector-general of prisons on the islaud, Mr. Shaw, in the paper 
submitted by him to the congress, of which this section is an epitome, 
calls attention to the very harked falling off' in the number of crimes 
committed by women, the decrease since 1SG4 having been 70 per cent. 
This reduction he attributes to the fact that, in 1804, orders were given 
to have the hair of women sentenced to hard labor cut close; immediately 
the decrease commenced. A negro woman prizes nothing so highly as 
her hair, and it is a common practice fot many of them to have their 
hair cut off before trial, and kept for them until their release, when 
they fasten it on again. Those who are less provident sedulously seclude 
themselves until their hair has growm. 

Mr. Shaw says that after considerable experience with prisoners, and 
having paid much attention to all that has been said and written on the 
practicability of deterring people from crime, he is compelled to confess 
that he knows no preventive measure so efficacious as cutting off the 
hair of negro women. 

§ 4. Victoria .—There is but one convict-prison in Victoria, which s 
for males only. The officers are appointed by the governor in council, 
to hold office during good behavior, and after service they have retiring 
gratuities and yearly pensions. 

The prisoners are divided into six classes and may earn a remission 
of a portion of their sentence by good conduct. Those in the first class 
are kept in strict separate confinement, eating, working, and sleeping in 
their cells ; those in the second, third, and fourth classes labor in asso¬ 
ciation, but are separated by night; in the fifth aud sixth classes they 


STATE OF PRISONS-VICTORIA. 


127 


are employed oil public works, receiving rations of tea, sugar, and tobacco, 
besides being allowed a gratuity amounting to 2d. a day in the fifth and 
Gd. per day in the sixth class. The punishments employed are solitary 
confinement and extension of the term of imprisonment. Resort is never 
bad to corporal punishment. The prisoners do not wear the parti-colored 
dress, the effect of which is believed to be merely degrading. 

There are four chaplains connected with the English, Roman Catho¬ 
lic, Wesleyan, and Presbyterian churches, each of whom holds one 
service every Sunday. A schoolmaster instructs all the prisoners in 
reading, writing, and arithmetic for one hour every day, and facilities 
are afforded for the study of grammar, geography, and the elementary 
mathematics. 

There is no strictly penal labor, nor is the prison labor let on contract. 
The chief kinds of work are quarrying, building, shoe-making, tailoring, 
carpentering, weaving, and mat-making. The value of the labor per¬ 
formed has averaged during the last five years about $85 per head, 
exclusive of work done for the prison itself. The average annual cost 
per capita in excess of this sum, including food, clothing, and a propor¬ 
tionate share of the salaries, besides the estimated rent of the prison- 
property, has been about $12. 

No supervision is maintained over discharged prisoners, nor is any 
interest taken in their subsequent career. 

The county jails are divided into two classes, one class being under 
the charge of the penal department of the government, the other under 
the police; about six months in the former, in the latter a few days, is 
the average sentence. In none of the jails is there penal labor, and in 
the police jails there is no labor of any kind. The prisoners work in 
association, and the average annual net earnings per capita , exclusive of 
any portion allowed to the prisoner himself, have been during the last 
five years about $18. The shortness of the sentences (nearly one-half 
being for less than a mouth) prevents any permanently reformatory 
results. 

There are three reformatories in Victoria, two of which are wholly, 
and one partially, supported by the state. As far as practicable the 
children’s parents are required to contribute to their support; but the 
amount received from this source is insignificant. The limits of age 
within which children are received are eight and fifteen. 

The boys are employed in tailoring, shoe-making, carpentery, sail- 
making, and seamanship. The girls perform the domestic work and 
are instructed in needle work. The products of the inmates’ labor are 
not sold, the work done being entirely for the use of the institution. 

In nearly every case the children obtain a situation or are sent to 
their parents. In the latter case they are no longer under the care of 
the institution. When licensed to employers they are considered still 
under its control, and may be returned to it if not doing well. 

Prizes are given for proficiency in school and in labor, and early dis¬ 
charge to service for good conduct. Those who distinguishffhemselves 
in this particular are appointed monitors, captains of messes, &c. The 
punishments are extra drill, privation of food for short periods, and cor¬ 
poral punishment, not exceeding twelve stripes, on hand or breech. 

Record is made of the children’s conduct while in the institution, and 
also after their discharge, as far as it can be ascertained. 


PAST SECOND. 


WORK OF THE CONGRESS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

It is obvious, on the slightest reflection, that a body like the Congress 
of London, coming together from so many different countries and com¬ 
posed of members having little previous knowledge of one another, 
and ignorant especially of each other’s opinions on the questions which 
they had met to consider, would be ill-suited to intelligent, harmonious, 
and, above all, effective work, without some carefully prepared chart to 
guide them in their labors. Impressed with this idea, the national 
committee of the United States had embodied in its final circular letter, 
addressed to the national committees of other countries, a recommen¬ 
dation that an international committee, to be composed of one or several 
members from each country which proposed to take part in the con¬ 
gress, should meet in London on the 24th of June, ten days in advance 
of the congress itself. Conformably to this recommendation, the pro¬ 
posed committee convened at the time and place named, and organized 
by choosing the undersigned as chairman and Edwin Pears, esq., as 
secretary, the latter gentleman to act as such throughout the sessions 
of the congress. Even the international committee found itself too 
unwieldy a body to do the work assigned it in a satisfactory manner, 
and designated a sub-committee, which it named an international ex¬ 
ecutive committee, consisting of one member from each country repre¬ 
sented in the general committee. Of this smaller bod/, (1. W. Hast¬ 
ings, esq., of England, was made chairman. These bodies met usually 
on alternate days, though sometimes on the same day at different hours, 
the smaller preparing the business and reporting it to the larger for a 
broader consideration and a final determination. The two committees 
thus labored assiduously at the work of arranging the programme of 
proceedings, and all other matters of a preparatory kind, down to the 
very eve of the opening of the congress. Before dissolving itself, the 
larger committee constituted the smaller a permanent committee, to sit 
every morning for the purpose of considering any questions that might 
arise in the progress of the labors of the congress, and especially to 
prepare business for it from day to day. It also named the Right Honor¬ 
able the Earl of Carnarvon permanent president of the body, although, 
owing to the state of his lordship’s health, it was understood that he 
would be able to preside only at the first session, when he would deliver 
the opening address. The arrangement resolved upon for securing a 
presiding officer throughout the continuance of the congress was to 
select a member as vice-president each day. The general committee, 
before its dissolution, did the undersigned the honor to name him for 
the first day, and left the duty to the executive committee of designat¬ 
ing the gentlemau to act as chairman for each of the succeeding days. 

The programme of questions to be submitted to the congress was 
arranged upon the principle of considering, first, the treatment of the 
prisoner before conviction; secondly, his treatment during the time of 



PART SECOND-INTRODUCTORY-DR. WINES* ADDRESS. 129 


punishment; and, thirdly, Iris treatment after discharge. But a con¬ 
siderable number of questions, deemed important to be discussed at this 
meeting, do not properly fall within either of the above categories; 
besides which, the whole subject of juvenile delinquency and its treat¬ 
ment, and that of penitentiary systens, refuse equally the strictly logi¬ 
cal classification indicated above. These matters are accordingly treated 
in three distinct chapters of the present report. 

The English government had not originally given that cordial hospi¬ 
tality to the idea of the congress which had been extended to it by 
other governments, both European and American. But whatever cool¬ 
ness it may have shown at first was amply atoned for by the fullness 
and warmth of its sympathy after the congress had been organized and 
had gotten fairly at work. It deputed Major Du Cane, chairman of the 
directors of convict-prisons, to attend the sessions of the congress, and 
instructed him to give all possible information concerning the Eng¬ 
lish convict-system and its workings. It threw open to the members 
every prison and reformatory in the United Kingdom, and gave instruc¬ 
tions to their governors to afford special facilities for observing and un¬ 
derstanding everything connected with their organization and manage¬ 
ment, even to the minutest details. His Royal Highness the Prince of 
Wales attended a soiree given to the congress by the people of London, 
at which members were individually presented to him, with many of 
whom he conversed freely, expressing a warm interest in the meeting, 
and in its objects and work. The lord chancellor gave a state dinner 
to the American judges and some other leading American delegates; 
and the Earl of Granville, secretary for foreign affairs, invited the en¬ 
tire congress to a magnificent soiree at his rooms in the foreign office. 
Several members of Parliament also, besides attending and partici¬ 
pating in the proceedings of the congress, gave dinners or soirees to its 
members at their residences in town or invited them to their country 
seats in the neighborhood. The home secretary, the Right Honorable H. 
A. Bruce, to whose department the care of prisons belongs, attended in 
person one of the sittings of the congress; and, in an eloquent address 
to the body, he expressed the gratification he experienced in appearing 
before it and in conveying to it his own and the thanks of the govern¬ 
ment for having chosen England as the place of meeting, and their high 
appreciation of the spirit in which the members had undertaken their 
task; adding highly interesting statements in regard to prison work 
and prison reform in England, and particularly in reference to the dim¬ 
inution of crime in that country, as shown by the penitentiary returns 
received at his office during the last ten years. 

As has been already stated in the general introduction to this report, 
the congress was opened on the evening of the 3d of July by an address 
from Lord Carnarvon; and on the morning of the 4th its real work 
began. The undersigned, appointed president for the day, opened the 
work of the congress with the short address which follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: Called by the kindness of the interna¬ 
tional committee to preside over this dignified assemblage, on this its 
first working-day, while expressing my gratitude for so distinguished 
an honor, I beg to offer a remark or two touching the occasion which 
has brought us together from so many different countries. This con¬ 
gress is convoked in the interest of humanity, of civilization. It is 
composed of thinkers and workers in one of the great departments of 
social science and social reform, representative men and women gath¬ 
ered literally from the ends of the earth. We have here representa¬ 
tives of governments, of prison societies, of penal and reformatory in- 
H. Ex. 185-9 



130 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


stitutions, of governing boards of penitentiary establishments, of high 
courts of criminal jurisdiction, ot‘ police boards, of associations of 
jurists, of the penal law departments of universities, and of the acad¬ 
emy of moral and political sciences of the Institute of France. There 
are present also many other persons who, though not belonging to 
either of the categories named, have long been devoted to penitentiary 
and humanitarian studies, and who have brought their great knowledge 
and their great hearts to help us in our labors. The special work of 
this congress is to study, and, if possible, to solve, the problems, as 
grave as they are difficult, involved in the treatment of crime and 
criminals. The congress, composed as has been explained, and em¬ 
bodying, therefore, representatively, the knowledge, experience, and 
wisdom of the world on this subject, has a great opportunity before it, 
great and full of promise. It is as great an opportunity as the noblest 
ambition could desire, but equally great is the responsibility which it 
brings with it; for let it be remembered that opportunity and duty are 
evermore correlative. God has joined them together, and man cannot 
put them asunder. The business of this congress, if I conceive it 
aright, is not to fritter away its time, strength, and zeal in minute de¬ 
tails, and especially not to give expression to a preference for one peni¬ 
tentiary system over others, but to agree upon certain broad principles 
and propositions which may be made to underlie, permeate, vivif 3 r , and, 
above all, to render fruitful any and all systems of criminal treatment. 
We have come together to giv e shape, point, and practical force to a 
great movement in favor of penitentiary reform, may I not almost say 
a great upheaval of the public conscience throughout the civilized 
world on this subject? Let us see to it that we rise to the full height of 
•our duty. Let us see to it that we give a wise direction, as we can 
hardly fail to impart a strong impulse, to the movement which I have indi¬ 
cated. If we do not fail in this, as I feel sure we shall not, and if we 
follow up our present work with some permanent organization that shall 
perpetuate, enlarge, and intensify its results, it seems to me not an un¬ 
reasonable hope that the next fifty years will see a progress in the 
methods and processes of criminal treatment, and especially in the 
principles and application of a reformatory prison discipline, which all 
the ages hitherto have scarcely witnessed. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the congress, let us address ourselves to our 
work with courage, resolution, intelligence, and, above all, with a 
hearty love of truth and a genuine brotherly accord, and we cannot 
doubt that the guidance and blessing of Heaven will attend our labors. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PRISONER AFTER ARREST AND BEFORE CONVICTION. 

This question was stated in the following terms: “ What should be 
the treatment of prisoners before conviction?” The discussion was 
opened by Count de Foresta, procureur-general of Ancona, Italy. He 
expressed himself as opposed to associated imprisonment prior to con¬ 
viction, more especially in cases where there was reason to fear that a 
prisoner by such association might defeat the ends of justice. He thought 
it an absolute duty of the authorities to provide isolation for such pris¬ 
oners under arrest as might desire it; and in no case should a man who 



TREATMENT OF PRISONERS BEFORE CONVICTION. 131 


was still deemed innocent be compelled to associate with others in a 
prison against his will. It was, at best, a hard necessity that a man 
should be locked up in a jail before he was convicted of any crime. 

The Rev. Mr. Collins,, of Tremardale, Bodmin, thought that the fre¬ 
quency of imprisonments before conviction might be, and ought to be, 
largely reduced. The plan he suggested to effect this was that, in all 
cases at present bailable, a system of personal bail should be substituted 
for a money bail. Instead of the existing arrangement, by which a sum 
of money is forfeited oh the prisoner’s failure to answer his recognizance , 
he would make the forfeit, in case of his non-appearance a full day 
before that appointed for his trial, liability to the full penalty of the 
crime with which he stands charged. He thought that this would secure 
his attendance much more effectively than the present system of bail, 
since no sane man would expose himself to a certain and extreme pen¬ 
alty, when, by surrendering himself, he would have all the chances of 
escape which a trial offers. Such a plan would have the advantage of 
placing the poor man, now often unable to obtain sureties, on a level 
with his richer neighbor. It would also tend to imbue the public mind 
with the idea that imprisonment is in itself a punishment and a dis¬ 
grace ; it would save many an innocent man from an imprisonment not 
deserved; it was in strict accord with the maxim that every man was 
to be deemed innocent until proved guilty; it was an economical arrange¬ 
ment, as it would save the cost of the prisoner’s support, and humane, 
since it prevented the sundering of wives and families from their bread¬ 
winners. 

Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, said that in his country safe custody was 
regarded as the only object of preliminary detention, and hence all who 
were able were allowed to purchase small luxuries. Before trial, all pris¬ 
oners were well accommodated. 

. Mr. Pownell, of England, said that the bench, with which he was con¬ 
nected, had anticipated this question. Every man being considered, in 
law, to be innocent until proved guilty, it seemed that an undeserved 
stigma was inflicted upon a man by sending him to jail before convic¬ 
tion. Hence a house of detention had been built for the reception of 
persons awaiting trial. The inmates were isolated, thus saving them 
from contamination and also from taunts flung at them, after liberation 
or acquittal, of having been incarcerated in a felon’s cell. Various priv¬ 
ileges were allowed them, such as the purchasing of their own food, if 
their means were sufficient, daily visits from friends, unrestricted con¬ 
sultation with their legal adviser, &c. This plan, he believed, was more 
just than to brand with the prison mark an untried man. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE PRISONER DURING!- HIS INCARCERATION. 

§ 1. Proper maximum of prisoners for any single prison .—The question 
“What ought to be the maximum number of prisoners or convicts de¬ 
tained in any prison?” was introduced before the congress by Mr. 
Ekert, of Germany, who said that during the many years through 
which he had been head of the prison at Bruchsal, this question had 
received much of his attention. He believed that five hundred should 
be made the maximum, and that the number should rather fall below 



132 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


than exceed that figure. This proposition he urged on the triple ground 
of security, justice to the prisoner, and hope of reformation. A larger 
number would, in his opinion, render individualization extremely diffi¬ 
cult, without which there can be no effective reformatory treatment of 
prisoners. Nor does an increased number of subordinates obviate the 
difficulty. The above view is in accordance with one of the fundamental 
principles of the Crofton prison system. The question of cost should 
not be made paramount, since where money considerations prevail, all 
reform too frequently comes to an end. He had arrived at his opinion 
after consultation with many competent authorities, whose belief coin¬ 
cided with that which had sprung up in his own mind after many years’ 
experience as a prison officer and as president of the German Prison 
Society, in which latter capacity he had had an opportunity of obtaining 
information from all parts of the world on the operation of different 
prison systems. 

Sir John Bowring, of England, was of opinion that large prisons 
were preferable to small ones, not only on the ground of economy, but 
also as affording a wider scope for emulation and moral improvement. 
The larger the scale on which labor is conducted, the more profitable 
are its returns, and he believed the same principle to hold true in the 
case of the operation of moral influences. Instruction is most easily 
imparted in universities, and a clergyman is more likely to make an im¬ 
pression on a large congregation than on a small one. The elements of 
improvement and the tendencies to deterioration should be considered 
in the treatment of each prisoner, and the larger the scale on which 
such observations are made, the more valuable would be the results. 

M. Yaucher-Cremieux, of Switzerland, agreed with Herr Ekert, while 
admitting that, for financial reasons, a large number might be desirable. 
The difficulties of supervision, however, particularly in cellular prisons, 
were greatly increased. He quoted M. Demetz, director of the reforma¬ 
tory at Mettray, France, as holding that three or four hundred 
was a sufficient number for prisons of this class, and expressed his be¬ 
lief that in prisons conducted on the congregate systeni one thousand 
should be the maximum. 

M. Stevens, of Belgium, thought that the question of expense should 
be subordinated to that of reformation. Looking at the question from 
that stand-point, he thought that in no prison should the number of 
convicts exceed five hundred, and in cellular prisons it should be even 
less. 

Hr. Mouat, late inspector-general of prisons in the province of Bengal, 
India, while agreeing with M. Stevens as to the superior importance of 
reformation over economy, believed that excessive subdivision of prisons 
might be justly opposed as too costly. He believed that individual 
treatment was entirely practicable in a prison containing one thousand 
inmates, if the staff of subordinates were large enough to attend to the 
details and to the treatment of each prisoner. This number had been 
made the maximum by law in India, in 1364, partly on financial grounds, 
and partly with a view to moral and disciplinary treatment. 

M. Petersen, of Norway, had, in the prison of which he was the head, 
an average of two hundred and twenty-four convicts. He considered this 
number too small, believing that large prisons could be more easily 
managed than small ones. With a small number of prisoners there 
was a tendency to go too much into detail and speak too much with 
them. Prisons conducted on the separate system should, he thought, 
have between three hundred and four hundred inmates. 

Hon. H. H. Leavitt, of Ohio, said that the state-prison of that State 


MAXIMUM AND CLASSIFICATION OF PRISONERS. 133 

contained one thousand prisoners, which number had not been found 
so large as to prevent reformation. 

Mrs. Janney, of Ohio, remarked that the authorities of the Ohio state- 
prison were of the opinion that six hundred was a sufficient number, 
and that it would be impossible for a warden to become individually 
acquainted with one thousand. 

Colonel Colville, for eighteen years governor of Coldbath Fields Prison, 
London, stated that the number of prisoners under his care at any one 
time had varied from one thousand live hundred to two thousand two 
hundred. He favored large prisons on financial grounds, and believed 
that, by the employment of a proper number of officials, all the advan¬ 
tages of smaller prisons might be secured, though he admitted that there 
was a tendency to limit the number of officials. Thus, while ten small 
prisons would have had ten schoolmasters, Coldbath Fields had but one. 
He had never, however, met with any difficulty in maintaining disci¬ 
pline, and a cheerfulness had prevailed which had often surprised him. 

Dr. Frey, of Austria, thought it impossible to fix a precise number. 
The great question was how far the head of the prison would be able to 
come into personal contact with each prisoner. If, as in Austria, he 
was free from all economical matters, and had nothing to do but manage 
the prisoners and see that they were well treated, he could attend to a 
large number; but if he had other duties, the number must be smaller. 

General Pilsbury, of New York, thought that five hundred or six hun¬ 
dred should be the maximum. He felt sure that he himself would not 
be able to give personal attention to one thousand prisoners. 

Professor Foynitsky, of Russia, thought that individual treatment 
should not be sacrificed to financial considerations. 

Mr. Frederic Hill, of England, contended that there might be indi¬ 
vidual treatment in large prisons. The Glasgow prison, when he was 
acquainted with it, had many hundreds, but there was individual treat¬ 
ment nevertheless. 

Baron von Holtzendorf, of Prussia, considered number dependent on 
the system of management. In a cellular prison, five hundred should 
be the maximum, and perhaps three hundred would be better, but in 
public-works prisons there might be six hundred or one thousand. 

§ 2. Classification of 'prisoners .—The question whether the classifica¬ 
tion of prisoners ought to be considered the basis of all penitentiary 
systems, associate or separate, was introduced by privy councilor 
d’Alinge, of Saxony, who prefaced his remarks by saying that the crim¬ 
inal is a moral invalid, whom we desire to help. This help can be ren¬ 
dered only by interrupting his criminal course, and by saving him from 
a relapse. In order to effect this end, three things are necessary: 1, 
care must be taken to ascertain the moral failing which prompted him 
to crime; 2, means must be employed adequate to the removal of this 
failing; 3, the convalescent must be provided with the full power of 
resisting, by dint of his own efforts, a relapse. The only means for the 
achievement of this triple end are education and classification. The 
first problem of the penitentiary authorities, then, is to obtain as clear 
an image as possible of the mental and moral condition of the prisoner. 
To the practised eye of the official, such an image is, in many cases, 
patent. In others, it will be necessary to isolate and watch the prisoner. 
Having made a moral diagnosis of the state of each prisoner, wo shall 
find that he belongs to one of two classes: Either he is so depraved as 
to have no power of will to do good remaining, (in which case another 
will must be substituted for his own,) or he has sufficient power h ft to 


134 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


rouse liimself aud strike out a better path on the strength of his spon¬ 
taneous resolve. To one of the former class we say, 44 You shall become 
a better man ; ” those in the latter say, 44 I trill become a better man.’ 7 
Thus the inmates of a penitentiary naturally divide themselves into 
three sections, which are best designated as disciplinary classes. 'Those 
who show little or no inclination to meet the educational endeavors of 
the authorities, only bending at the words 44 you shall,” form the third 
disciplinary class, or lowest grade. Those who, with the thought 44 1 
u'ill be better” in their minds, co-operate readily with the exertions of 
the authorities in raising their moral culture, and who, with a deter¬ 
mined will and all their strength, profit by the means placed at their 
disposal, form the second disciplinary class. Those, lastly, who for some 
time have endeavored to improve, and justify a hope of steady progress 
on their return into society, form the first disciplinary class. Such a 
classification demands of the managers a course of action similar to that 
of the physician. They must, by employing adequate modifications of 
prison discipline and educational agencies a't their command, treat the 
prisoner operatively, curatively, and dietetically. Such a classification, 
based on true psychological individualization, will and must, in every 
prison system, work to the highest benefit of the prisoner, and, in con¬ 
sequence, improve the political condition of the country adopting it. 
In Saxony, this system has been applied to 50,000 prisoners with the 
greatest success. 

M. Stevens, of Belgium, said that in that country there are two sys¬ 
tems of classification. One is based on external conduct: obedience, 
submission, and industry. Under this system there are three classes: 
the good, the passable, and the bad. The other rests upon moral char¬ 
acter, a much more difficult matter to ascertain, since God alone can judge 
the heart. 

Dr. Mouat, of England, had formerly had sixty prison officers under 
his control in India. It was their unanimous opinion that moral classi¬ 
fication was impossible, and that a moral barometer was a chimera, 
since prisoners did their best to conceal their real character, lest they 
should suffer harsher treatment. 

Mr. Tallack, of England, agreed with Dr. Mouat, and thought that 
the impossibility of moral classification was one of the strongest argu¬ 
ments for the cellular system, under which every prisoner was a class 
by himself. 

Dr. Marquardsen, of Germany, member of the Keichstag, believed 
moral classification to be impossible. jNo doubt any system of classifi¬ 
cation was better than none at all, but he believed, the cellular system 
to be the true basis. 

Mr. Serjeant Cox, of England, was of opinion that there was a wide 
difference, morally speaking, between the man who committed a crime 
of violence under sudden passion and the habitual thief. The former 
was frequently far more severely punished than the latter, although his 
offense did not, of itself, indicate great moral depravity. He thought 
it monstrous that the two should be treated precisely alike in prison. A 
classification which only recognized these two categories, would be bet¬ 
ter than none. 

Dr. Bittinger, of Pennsylvania, pointed out that the necessity for 
classification of some sort had always been recognized—first, in the 
separation of different sexes and different ages, and afterward in the 
construction of prisons for offenses of various grades. He thought, 
with Mr. Cox, that the man who had committed a crime in hot blood, 
or while intoxicated, and the habitual criminal ought not to be treated 


PRISON MANAGEMENT AND LEGISLATION. 


135 


alike in prison. The latter was hopeless, crime being his profession ; 
while the former might be the victim of misfortune. A sense of justice 
was essential to reform ; and if they were put on the same footing, the 
pick-pocket would despise justice, while the other would resent being 
made a felon. An employer knew the character of his men, and lie be¬ 
lieved that a prison officer might judge of the moral character of his 
prisoners by the same, standard, i. e., their actions. 

Colonel Ratcliffe, of England, while admitting that classification, was 
impossible in prisons where the sentences were for a few weeks or 
months, thought it practicable in convict-prisons where the sentences 
were of long duration. 

Baron von Holtzendorff, of Prussia, said that M. d’Alinge’s practical 
experience had refuted the allegation of impossibility. Isolation and 
the cellular system had arisen from the alleged impossibility of classifi¬ 
cation, but the progressive system involved classification, and the prob¬ 
lem had been solved by Germany and, to a certain extent, by Sir W. 
Orofton’s system. The mark system was a self-acting method of classi¬ 
fication according to behavior. God alone could gauge the inner man, 
but the outer man could be tested by behavior and industry. If he 
played the hypocrite, he must be left to God. 

§ 3. Prison management—how far to be regulated by legislation .—The 
discussion on this question was opened by Mr. Stevens, of Belgium. 
He thought that prisons should be placed under the direction of a cen¬ 
tral authority. The regulations of the public administration should 
determine the prison administration, the mode of surveillance, and the 
moral aud material treatment to be adopted in conformity with the law; 
but a certain latitude should be left to the executive authority, making 
obligatory, however, a due regard for the principles fixed by the law. 
When prison treatment is not regulated by law, this latitude is too 
large and extremely liable to abuse. 

Baron Mackay, of Holland, agreed with Mr. Stevens that the general 
principles of prison discipline should be laid down by legislation, but 
thought that, in view of the rapid advances made in this science, it would 
be unwise to attempt to prescribe details, which, when fixed by statute, 
could not be easily altered. 

Mr. Frederic Hill, of England, said that the plan suggested by Mr. 
Stevens had been adopted in Scotland. Under the Scotch system all 
details were left to the authorities in charge of the prison, who were 
thus enabled to make such changes, from time to time, as experience 
might suggest. He thought that the English system fettered the prison 
officials too much. There should, however, always be some one directly 
responsible to government for the working of the regulations adopted 
in each prison. 

Dr. Mouat said that the Indian system approximated to the Scotch. 
Minute rules should not be embodied in acts of Parliament, but left to 
experienced authorities, to be altered whenever it might become neces¬ 
sary. 

Baron von Holtzendorff said that the criminal code of Germany had 
formerly given only the names of different kinds of punishment, but the 
Reichstag had asked the government to frame a rule defining each kind 
of imprisonment. In Germany, and especially in Prussia, all regula¬ 
tions for local prisons emanated from the government. There w,as, con¬ 
sequently, great uniformity, and no such difference could exist as pre¬ 
vailed in England between jails and convict-prisons. Some prison 
governors had no confidence in any system but their own, and it was 
necessary to put some restraint on them. The question whether or not 


136 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


corporal punishment ought to be inflicted should be determined by the 
legislature, and not left, as in Germany, to the discretion of the governor. 
The maximum and minimum of severity should also be laid down by 
law, but the application—the determining what degree of severity to 
inflict—should be left to the authorities. 

Mr. Beltrani-Scalia, of Italy, said that in that country, for a long 
time past, the law had laid down principles and left the mode of exe¬ 
cuting them to the authorities. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, objected to any attempt to obtain the 
benefit of a uniform system by sacrificing local action. He considered 
diversity of experiment the only way of arriving at the best treatment. 
It was impossible to say what was the best system of prison admin¬ 
istration under all circumstances, in all countries, or even in all parts 
of the same country. The legislature should laydown certain broad 
principles, but within those limits entire liberty should be left to local 
administration. Under a stereotyped system, which fettered the ad¬ 
ministrators, its faults—and there would certainly be some—would be 
without hope of remedy ; whereas, by leaving room for experiment and 
diversity of action, a touch better system would ultimately be reached. 

Mr. Berden, of Belgium, said that in that country a special law, a 
modification of the Code Napoleon, laid down the principles of prison 
administration, but left sufficient discretion to prison authorities to 
deal with individuals as circumstances might dictate. Thus, although 
most of the prisons were being adapted to the cellular system, which 
system was favored by the legislature, prisoners who from ill-health or 
other causes were unfit for the cellular system were not subjected to it. 

§ 4. Whether whipping should he employed as a disciplinary punishment. 
—Mr. Stevens was of opinion that it should not. Its tendency was to bru¬ 
talize the prisoner, and thus neutralize the reformatory influences that 
should be brought to bear upon him. He deprecated the use of physical 
punishment of all kinds, believing that moral means were all-sufficient, 
if properly applied. The bastinado can never open the way to the heart. 
Such punishments, in the words of a French workman, affect only the 
prisoner’s hide , while degrading him to the level of the brute. In 
Belgium, any prison official who had resort to the lash would be promptly 
dismissed from his post. It should never be forgotten that imprisonment 
is but a severe, though benevolent, means to the accomplishment 
of the prisoner’s reformation. Experience has proved that good dis¬ 
cipline can be maintained without frequent recourse to punishments, 
and that many prisoners are led to obedience by the moderation 
and justice displayed toward them by the administration. The idea 
that prisoners can be governed only by severity proceeds upon the 
mistaken belief that they are forever lost as regards an honest life. 
Such a belief overlooks the relation subsisting between crime on the 
one side and ignorance and parental neglect on the other, and those 
who employ such chastisement as leaves in the heart only sentiments 
of hatred and vengence may justly be held responsible for the neglect 
of those moral and religious influences, which alone are able to lead 
men to obedience and duty. 

Major Hu Cane, director of English convict prisoners, believed that 
prisoners were persons whom discipline must reduce to a proper frame 
of mind. He believed it would be impossible to preserve discipline and 
protect the officers—a few men amid large bodies of prisoners, many of 
turbulent dispositions—without the fear of corporal punishment. He 
had himself known prisoners to acknowledge that but for flogging they 
would not have become tractable and reformed characters. 


WHIPPING AS A DISCIPLINARY PUNISHMENT. 


137 


Dr. Mouat said that in Indian prisons, owing to their imperfect con¬ 
struction, the cane had been much more largely employed than the 
sugar extracted from it. Its infliction should, in his opinion, be restricted 
to cases where convicts were so degraded and brutalized that the lash 
alone would compel them to good behavior; but, while agreeing that 
moral means should be pushed to the utmost, he would still, in jealously- 
guarded cases, retain the power, in the hope that this would render its 
exercise unnecessary. 

Mr. Shepherd, for thirty years governor of the Wakefield prison, Eng¬ 
land, with an average of one thousand inmates, stated that during all that 
time no corporal punishment was inflicted there for prison offenses. 
He doubted whether in cases where it was inflicted every other means 
had first been tried. He favored its entire abolition. Up to his resig¬ 
nation (six years ago) he had remarked that nearly every prisoner sub¬ 
jected to corporal punishment returned to the prison again. 

Dr. Marquardsen, of Bavaria, said that in his country corporal pun¬ 
ishment had been abandoned several years ago, both as a means of pub¬ 
lic punishment and as an agency of prison discipline. The respect and 
obedience shown by prisoners had since greatly increased, breaches of 
discipline had diminished, and no prison authority desired a revival of 
the practice. The committee of the Reichstag, of which he had been a 
member, charged with the framing of a military code for Germany, had 
also set aside corporal punishment, so that not a blow could be struck 
in the whole empire. 

Dr. Frey, as the governor of a prison with many hundred inmates, said 
that in Austria the use of the lash was abolished in 1866, experience 
having shown that it was demoralizing. It deprived the prisoner of 
that self-esteem which formed the basis of his moral improvement, and 
the strictest discipline might be maintained by other means. 

Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, said it was also beiug abolished in 
his country. 

Major Fulford, governor of the jail in Staffordshire, England, said 
that he was required to be present at every infliction of corporal pun¬ 
ishment in his prison, and that he was invariably ill in consequence. 
Still, he believed it impossible to dispense with it in a prison where, as 
was the case with his, the prisoners were thoroughly degraded and 
vicious. There was a class of men who thought nothing of disgrace, 
but cared only for the stripes that they received. 

Mr. Wills, governor of Nottingham prison, England, agreed with Major 
Fulford that flogging, though it should rarely be administered, was a 
useful power in reserve. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Massachusetts, thought the only thing to 
be said for flogging was that it was a time-saving process. Reason would 
gain as much in time. She was sure that no brutally ill-treated woman 
would thank the prison officials for sending her husband home more 
brutalized than before. She would never say to any prisoner, “You 
area brute?” Rather would she say, “You are God’s child; ,do not 
dishonor His image, as I cannot, no matter what have been your faults, 
dishonor it in yon.” 

Mr. Frederic Hill said that for seven years, while he was inspector of 
prisons in Scotland, no corporal inflictions were allowed, nor did he hear 
any prison governor express a wish for the power to inflict such chas¬ 
tisement. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, was glad to say that it had not been found 
necessary to use the lash in the county prison of which he was a visit¬ 
ing justice. 


138 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Sir Walter Crofton said that Englishmen generally favored the reten¬ 
tion of the power of corporal punishment, in order that the necessity 
might never arise for its exercise. Prison governors had not the power 
of enforcing discipline by this means, which could be employed only on 
magisterial sanction. Its use was very exceptional, and resort was 
never had to it, until every other resource had been exhausted. In 
countries which had abolished Hogging in prison, other punishments 
were employed, and if an unobjectionable substitute could be found for 
England, he would be rejoiced to hear of it. Every magistrate and 
prison governor had a horror of it, but all clung to the necessity of re¬ 
taining the power to inflict it. 

General Pilsbury, of New York, said he was no advocate of corporal 
punishment. He knew from experience, however, that all prisoners 
could not be governed by moral suasion; a few require severer disci¬ 
pline. He was convinced that no prison could be well and safely gov¬ 
erned, unless ample power were vested in the chief officer to inflict 
special punishment, when called for, promptly, summarily, and, if need 
be, severely. He was of opinion, however, that this power should be 
given to the chief officer alone, and that not through the intervention 
of an advisory board. If prisoners knew that he possessed such a pow¬ 
er, occasion for punishment would seldom arise; the knowledge would 
prove sufficient of itself to enforce discipline. 

I)r. Marquardsen, of Bavaria, thought that the actual experience of 
wliat had been accomplished without the power to inflict corporal pun¬ 
ishment furnished a stronger argument than the alleged maintenance 
of discipline by the existence of power which was seldom exercised. 
Such a method of reasoning he could not accept. 

§ 5. Kinds and limits of instruction suited to the reformatory treatment 
of prisoners. —Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, opened the discussion by saying 
that the means of moral influence should consist chiefly in education, 
which should be of a quadruple character: industrial, scholastic, moral, 
and religious. 

1. Industrial education. —The object of this part of his education is to 
provide the prisoner with the means of earning a livelihood on his dis¬ 
charge. Consequently, in the work-shops, more care should be taken to 
teach him his trade thoroughly than to make his labor productive. The 
primary object of labor, as an element of prison discipline, is to reform 
the prisoner and aid him to lead a reformed life on his discharge; hence it 
should be organized and conducted with a view rather to the future of 
the prisoner than to its effect upon the treasury. 

2. /Scholastic instruction. —This should comprise reading, writing, arith¬ 
metic, the elements of grammar, history, geography, geometry, and 
linear drawing, the latter especially in reference to trades and useful 
arts. The fact that public instruction has received so great an exten¬ 
sion within the last few years renders it all the more important that a 
vigorous impulse be given to primary instruction in prisons. Illiterate 
persons should be the object of special care. 

3. Moral education. —The teacher should, by special instruction in the 
school, inculcate the performance of social duties. This instruction 
should review the principal existing vices of society and demonstrate 
their sad and shameful consequences. Alternately the teaching should 
be based on the virtue opposed to the particular vice discussed at the 
preceding lesson, and should set forth as well its inherent beauty as the 
moral and material advantages associated with its exercise. Other les¬ 
sons should be given on the most frequent violations of the penal code, 
especially noting such crimes as robbery, swindling, rape, assault, mur- 


PENITENTIARY EDUCATION-ITS KINDS AND LIMITS. 139 


der, &c. In all moral instruction, an effort should be made to develop 
the sentiments of justice, family affection, and patriotism. 

4. Religious education .—By this is understood the special religious 
instruction given by the ministers of each faith to the prisoners attached 
to it who are ignorant of the essential truths of religion. The use of 
the word special in describing this part of the prisoner’s education 
signified that such instruction should be entirely independent of the 
religious instruction given by the chaplain to the prisoners in general. 
The sentiment of religion should be always deemed the last and strong¬ 
est influence in a penitentiary education. 

Mr. Tallack, of England, said that the prisons act, passed by Parlia¬ 
ment in 18(35, subordinated moral and religions instruction, which he 
believed to be an unsound principle. He deplored the small attention 
which was paid to convict education in the prisons of the United King¬ 
dom. 

Mr. Merry, a Berkshire magistrate, deprecated the pursuit of indus- * 
trial labor to the exclusion of a proper attention to education, maintain¬ 
ing that silent congregate labor left the head empty and the heart 
hard. 

Mr. McFarlane, of England, said that every care was taken in the 
Irish prisons to provide, first, for religious and then for industrial and 
literary instruction. He was surprised to hear Mr. Tallack arraign the 
prisons of Ireland on the score of neglect in this particular. 

Dr. Varrentrap, of Germany, thought that secular should include physi¬ 
cal education, since the mental and moral equilibrium depended so largely 
on the physique. He believed that no limit should be placed on secular 
instruction, and favored the task-system of labor as affording the pris¬ 
oner a better opportunity for study. 

Miss Mary Carpenter, of England, thought that society was bound to 
cultivate the powers God had given to a prisoner, and so enable him the 
better to discharge his duties as a prisoner and a man, and the difficulty 
attending the education of adults should form no obstacle. She regretted 
that government did not recognize this duty. Instruction should be so 
imparted as to be in itself a pleasure, and its influence would then be 
most salutary, as tending to wean prisoners from the indulgence of their 
lower passions. Scholastic, moral, and religious instructions were closely 
allied, and should not be separated. 

§ 6. Whether it is expedient in certain cases to employ an imprisonment 
consisting in mere privation of liberty without obligation to work .—Count 
de Foresta, of Italy, thought that crimes of passion, not implying great 
moral perversity, should not be punished by ordinary imprisonment, 
but by simple detention in a fortress or other secure place, without 
the prisoner being required to labor, and without association with those 
sentenced to ordinary imprisonment. The natural distinction between 
crimes of passion and of reflection seemed to indicate the propriety of 
making a difference between the punishments awarded them. Crimes 
of the former category are frequently committed by persons who are 
young, well educated, and uncorrupted. For such prisoners he consid¬ 
ered the solitude of a cell, with forced labor, merely an aggravation of 
punishment, and not calculated to have a reformatory influence. He 
believed that simple detention, with the privilege of reading, attending 
to their own affairs, and seeing friends, was a sufficient punishment. 
What descriptions of criminals should be treated in this manner should 
be determined by the penal code. 

Professor Wladrinoff, of Kussia, remarked that simple infractions of 
the law did not involve criminality. He thought it should be left to the 


140 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


jury to decide to which class a prisoner belonged, it being a matter 
involving personal liberty. 

Mr. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, said that the plan suggested by Count 
de Foresta was in most successful operation in Pennsylvania, and he 
believed that it might be made a success everywhere. 

Dr. Mouat dissented from this view. He had been connected with 
prisons in India where such a system had been applied, and lie believed 
it to be very corrupting. 

Dr. Marquardsen said that the code adopted in Germany three years 
ago recognized the principle contended for by Count de Foresta. The 
distinction made there, however, was not between crime and crime, but 
between criminal and criminal, and it rested with the judge to decide 
whether the offender should be kept at hard labor or in custodia honesta. 
The latter class of criminals were imprisoned in a fortress. Speaking 
for himself personally, he believed that, in general, persons guilty of 
minor offenses should not be left without labor. He believed that the 
law of Germany embodied the true principle on this subject. Under its 
provisions, criminals were divided into hard-labor prisoners and such as 
were employed in the trades and professions to which they were accus¬ 
tomed. 

§7. Whether sentences for life are expedient .—Baron von Holtzendorff, 
of Prussia, in opening the discussion on this question, called attention to 
the very decided difference in the view at present taken of the object to 
be attained by punishment and that which, as history discloses, was 
taken in the past. Salvation was now universally regarded as a primary 
end of correction, and this recognition of the principle that men ought 
to be reclaimed led to the agitation of the question under discussion. 
He did not, however, favor the abolition of life-sentences, if capital pun¬ 
ishment were expunged from the penal code; and he believed that all 
who favored the abolition of the latter measure must agree with him. 
Imprisonment for life must remain the substitute for one or two cen¬ 
turies at least. But such a punishment should, like all other punishments, 
contain the elements of hope and fear: fear lest the term of imprison¬ 
ment be actually for life, and hope of release after ten or twelve years 
on satisfactory proof of reformation. 

Dr. Wines stated that, under the law of Missouri, a prisoner sentenced 
for life, who conducted himself with uniform propriety, became entitled 
to his liberty after fifteen years in the state-prison. 

Dr. Mouat said that the same principle had been adopted in India. 

Hon. D. Haines, of New Jersey, said that his objection to life-sentences 
lay in the fact that they left no hope in the convict’s breast, without 
which there could be no reformation. Even if hope remained, it was 
too uncertain and remote to have much influence on the prisoner. 

Mr. Stevens agreed with Baron von Holtzendorff’, that life-long im¬ 
prisonment was but the means to an eud, and not an end in itself, but 
that it was demanded as a substitute in the event of capital punishment 
being abolished. Theoretically speaking, perpetual penalties should not 
exist. 

Mr. Vaucher-Cremieux, of Switzerland, thought that the security of 
society forbade the liberation of an assassin or a man condemned to 
imprisonment for life. The possibility of a release would render society 
uneasy. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, said that in that country there was practi¬ 
cally no such thing as imprisonment for life. Though such sentences 
were passed, hope always remained, the prisoner being uniformly liber- 


SHOULD RECIDIVISTS RECEIVE SEVERER TREATMENT? 141 

ated by tlie home secretary in the event of good conduct for a number 
of years. 

§ 8. Whether prisoners , on reconviction , should he subjected to a more 
severe disciplinary treatment. —Mr. S. Petersen, of Bavaria, said that a 
recidivist apparently deserved severer treatment for the obstinacy of 
his criminal propensities. Yet in view of the fact that courts, in pro¬ 
nouncing sentence, always took into consideration the circumstance of 
a previous conviction, and, as a consequence, increased the length of 
the sentence, if the prison authorities also increased the severity of 
the punishment by a sterner disciplinary treatment, the prisoner was 
punished twice, which was manifestly unfair. The judge alone should 
award the increase of punishment. 

Mr. Ploos van Amstel, of Holland, was of the same opinion. 

Hr. Frey, of Austria, maintained that recidivists should be more 
severely treated. They felt this more sensibly than longer sentences. 
In the prison of Carlan, in Styria, where there were three stages of im¬ 
prisonment, the first of which was exceedingly punitive, recidivists 
might be kept in the most severe stage for one-half their sentence, while 
those sentenced for a first offense were never kept in this stage for more 
than one-third of the time. The results of this system had been good. 

Rev. Mr. Robin, of France, was convinced, by fifteen years’ experience 
as prison chaplain, that the recidivist was never reformed by aggra¬ 
vated treatment. He gave an account of two men in a prison where he 
had been chaplain, on whom such treatment was tried. One died under 
it, and the other grew morose and stubborn; but when, at his request, 
the discipline was a little relaxed, the convict changed his course of 
conduct, and eventually, upon release, gave satisfactory evidence of refor¬ 
mation. Firmness should always be blended with kindness. To pro¬ 
vide a discharged prisoner the means and opportunity of eating honest 
bread was a more effectual safeguard against relapses than a severity 
which was hostile to humanity and Christianity. 

M. Stevens did not think that prison authorities should aggravate 
the punishment. The law should give longer sentences to recidivists, 
but all should receive the same treatment in prison; otherwise, there 
would be arbitrary differences, and the severity would go on increasing 
for the third and fourth offenses. It should be remembered that relapse 
was frequently caused by the prisoner finding every door closed against 
him on his discharge. 

Count Sollohub, of Russia, thought that the proper punishment of 
recidivisits was a question for the law, and not for the prison authori¬ 
ties. If the severity of the discipline were increased upon each convic¬ 
tion, a degree of severity would ultimately be reached, incompatible 
with reformatory influences. He agreed with Mr. Robin that prisoners’ 
aid societies were the best means of preventing relapses and re instating 
a prisoner in society. 

Hr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, said that in that country recidivists 
were sentenced for a longer period than other criminals. In some can¬ 
tons they were condemned to bread and water two or three days a week. 
This practice he did not favor, since it often left the prisoners in such a 
state of debility as to render a relapse easier. He deprecated recourse 
to a severity condemned by Christianity. 

Count de Foresta thought, with Count Sollohub, that the law, and 
not the prison authorities, should prescribe the punishment of recidi¬ 
vists. He thought that any other plan would tend to cruelty. As Mr. 
Stevens had remarked, the fact that society was too often responsible 
for a prisoner’s relapse should prevent excessive severity. He was far- 


142 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


ther opposed to the term recidivist being applied to a man, one of whose 
two offenses had been a crime of passion or excitement. 

Rev. Dr. Bittinger, of Pennsylvania, advocated an increase of punish¬ 
ment for each new offense. In order to effect reformation, we must ap¬ 
peal to the criminal’s sense of justice, but he would despise the justice 
which had the same punishment for the burglar, convicted of his fif¬ 
teenth offense, as for the novice in crime. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Boston, thought that the criminal should 
be shown something better than his own savage standard of justice. 

§ 9. What ought to he the maximum of imprisonment , cellular or other¬ 
wise, for terms less than life? —Dr. Marquardsen, of Bavaria, said this 
^question was not so much one of principle as of adaptation to local 
circumstances. In general, however, he would say that the maximum 
ought to be fifteen years, with the possibility of reduction for good be¬ 
havior. He believed, however, that the character of the punishment, 
as to mildness or severity, as well as its duration, should vary according 
to the heinousness or veniality of the offense; and in fixing the du¬ 
ration regard should be paid to the character of the punishment. In 
Germany, cellular imprisonment was generally limited to three years. 
He disapproved of the English system of sentences, under which there 
was no intermediate term between two years and five. 

Dr. Frey stated that in Austria the term of isolated confinement did 
not exceed three years, while the longest term of imprisonment was 
twenty years. 

Air. Stevens stated that in Belgium the maximum of cellular confine¬ 
ment had been reduced from twenty years to ten, and then to nine and 
a half, when, if a man was found to be no better, he was placed in a con¬ 
gregate prison. It had not been found, however, that prisoners suffered 
more, either in mind or body, under the cellular than under the congre¬ 
gate system. 

Air. Aloncure, of Scotland, said that in the prison at Perth it had 
been found that cellular confinement for more than three years pro¬ 
duced insanity, notwithstanding that the prisoners had employment 
and communicated with chaplain, magistrates, and officers. 

Baron Alaekay said that in Holland the maximum of cellular confine¬ 
ment was, in 1851, fixed at six months, but had been increased, first to 
one year and then to two, and a further increase was favored. The 
term would probably be extended to three years as soon as the number 
of cells was sufficient. 

Sir Walter Croftou referred to experiments carefully made at Penton- 
ville, England, under the direction of Sir Joshua Jebb, formerly director 
of convict-prisons, the results of which showed that eighteen months 
was the longest possible period for which isolation could be safely main¬ 
tained. During the time when transportation was employed as a means 
of punishment under the English law, the surgeons at the penal sta¬ 
tions in the colonies reported that the condition of those men who had 
been kept in strict cellular confinement for a period of from two to two 
and a half years before being transported was particularly unsatisfac¬ 
tory. They were found to have suffered to some extent in their minds, 
and their wills were broken down. It was such reports as these that 
caused the reduction of the term of cellular confinement to nine months. 

§ 10. Whether or not imprisonment should he uniform in nature , and dif¬ 
fer only in length .—Count Sollohub, of Russia, in opening the discus¬ 
sion on this question, remarked that the object of a hospital was not to 
keep its patients, but to send them out cured. In like manner, the 
object of a prison should be to combat the moral malady, and return 


PRISON LABOR-PENAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 


143 

patients to society cured. As hospitals, moreover, endeavor to guard 
against a relapse into physical disease, so the prison authorities should 
direct their efforts to prevent a relapse into the inoral disease of crime. 
It should be considered in every case whether the offense was the result 
of perversity and a passion for crime, or of some sudden excitement or 
temptation. Different classes of criminals, like differently-affected pa¬ 
tients, required various kinds of treatment, and every precaution should 
be taken against contagion, by which the disease might be aggravated 
and a cure rendered more difficult. Each kind of prison should have a 
special aim; a prison which attempted to effect two different objects 
would succeed in neither. There should be two classes of prisons: one 
for convicts whose characters evidenced moral perversity, the other for 
those whose offenses were the result of a sudden break-down of princi¬ 
ple or of uncontrolled passion. This was the principle of division fol¬ 
lowed in Russia. 

Dr. Mount admitted that it was desirable to make punishment pro¬ 
portionate to guilt, but feared that there was no moral barometer by 
which guilt could be strictly measured. 

Count de Foresta, of Italy, said there existed in that country and in 
France three classes of punishment: sentences to simple imprisonment, 
to reclusion, and to hard labor. The first class could not exceed five 
years, except in the case of recidivists, whose term might be doubled. 
The prisoner was employed in industrial labor. Reclusion had five 
years as a minimum and ten years as a maximum, and involved the 
loss of civil rights. Hard labor implied civic degradation and civil 
death, and persons sentenced to it for a term remained subject for their 
lives to police-supervision. Speaking for himself, he did not favor this 
system. He contended that there should be but one kind of sentence, 
tiie only difference being in length, and there should be different pris¬ 
ons with different disciplines for the various terms of imprisonment. 
Prisoners for three or four years should not be placed in the same 
buildings or treated in the same way as those sentenced for ten or fif¬ 
teen years. 

§ 11 .—Prison labor—penal and industrial .—The question whether 
prison labor should be merely penal, or whether it should be industrial 
only, or whether there should be a mixture of both, was introduced by 
Mr." Frederic Hill, of England. Mr. Hill declared himself an earnest 
advocate of industrial , as opposed to purely penal , labor, such as the 
crank, tread-mill, shot drill, &c. He recapitulated the main arguments 
for and against industrial labor in prisons. Its opponents, he said, 
based their hostility mainly on four grounds: 1, that it renders im¬ 
prisonment less irksome, and consequently less deterrent, than it 
should be; 2, that it is difficult to procure for prisoners such kinds 
of work as will be really remunerative; 3, that, however suited to 
long imprisonments, industrial labor is not adapted to short sentences; 
and, 4, that its introduction into prisons subjects the honest, free laborers 
outside to unfair competition. In reply to the first objection, Mr. Hill 
urged that irksomeness is not the chief end of prison discipline. It 
neither prepares the prisoner for a life of honest industry himself nor 
eradicates motives to corrupt others, while it is highly improbable that 
its deterrent effect on others would be at all commensurate with the 
evils it engenders in those who are brought under such a system—the 
irritation, resentment, obstinacy, and hardness which it unquestionably 
produces; besides which, the confinement of a prison and the other 
privations attendant upon a convict’s life are in themselves sufficiently 
irksome. The only true test whether a prison has become attractive, is 


144 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


to open wide its doors to all comers, without demanding, as now, a 
qualification of crime. But although, during a considerable part of 
Mr. Hill’s service as prison-inspector in Scotland, free entrance was 
really given, although no legal provision was made for the able-bodied 
poor, and although industrial labor was required of all, the proportion 
of paupers to compulsory prisoners was seldom more than one to fifty. 
To the second objection, Mr. Hill opposed his own experience as in¬ 
spector in Scotland, where the main difficulties he encountered lay in 
the shortness of the sentences and the indisposition and incapacity of 
prison governors and their subordinates for this special duty. The 
third argument Mr. Hill met by showing, first, that, even in cases of 
short imprisonment, labor, productive iu some degree at least, can 
always be provided; and, secondly, that when such punishments are 
but repetitions, often twenty or thirty times in succession, of the 
same penalty, the true remedy is not to render the system of 
discipline suitable to so absurd a practice, but, by a change in the law, 
to get rid of the practice itself. 

In answer to the allegation of injustice done to honest mechanics by 
introducing trades into prisons, Mr. Hill pointed out that from the ex¬ 
tremely small amount of manufacturing carried on at penal institutions 
the competition must necessarily be very small; and that from the car§ 
that a public department would be likely to take to avoid precipitancy 
in selling below the market-rates, the danger to ordinary trade from 
prison labor would probably be less than from the same amount of free 
labor. Moreover, cheapness in price is an advantage to the greater 
number, so that, even granting that prison manufactures did sensibly 
affect the permanent prices of articles, which he deuied, such effect 
would be a good rather than an evil. And, as a last consideration, he 
urged that every shilling saved to the public by prison earnings is a 
shilling added to that fund from which wages must be paid. 

Having thus noticed the arguments of the advocates of penal labor, 
Mr. Hill proceeded briefly to enumerate the grounds of his advocacy of 
the universal introduction of remunerative industrial labor into prisons. 
The following is a summary: 1. That to make labor useful and pro¬ 
ductive in prison, as well as out of prison, is in accordance with nature ; 
that to strip it of these qualities is, if not absolutely unnatural, at 
least artificial; a course demanding justification and proof of its 
propriety—a proof not given. 2. That by means of useful and produc¬ 
tive labor much of the cost to society of the apprehension, trial, and 
imprisonment of criminals may be repaid and something at least done 
toward indemnifying the persons wronged. 3. That such employment, 
being free from everything that is repulsive and degrading, becomes 
associated in the prisoner’s mind with pleasurable thoughts, and tends 
to make him look upon work as deserving of respect. 4. That by this 
kind of work a prisoner, besides making the payments mentioned under 
the second head, may help to support his family and may provide a fund 
with which, at the end of his confinement, either to pay the cost of emi¬ 
gration or to have the means of making a fresh and honest start in his 
own country. 5. That prisoners who have been employed in useful and 
productive work are, at their liberation, much better armed against 
relapse into crime, as well as much better prepared to obtain an honest 
living, than those whose labor has been merely penal, and that, in fact, 
the proportion subsequently doing well is much larger. 

Major Fulford, governor of Stafford jail, England, contended that 
prisons were not reformatories, but should be a terror to evil-doers. 
He considered that penal labor was necessary iu the case of “repeaters,’’ 


PRISON LABOR-PENAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 


145 


since the professional thief or drunkard was utterly insensible to high 
moral teaching. He thought, however, that such offenders should not 
be kept in a county jail, but sent to a convict establishment for a period 
long enough to eradicate his evil habits. 

General Pilsbury, of Albany, thought penal labor destitute of any 
reformatory element. He had always found in American prisons that 
the most successful institutions, in a reformatory point of view, were 
those where industrial labor was so managed as to produce a substan¬ 
tial income. 

Hr. Wines brought to the attention ot the congress the large indus¬ 
trial prison of Count Sollohub, at Moscow, the reformatory results of 
whose discipline were remarkable, only nine prisoners having returned 
during six years out of 2,100 discharged. At this prison, each convict 
was permitted to choose the trade he would learn, and, on mastering it, 
was allowed two-thirds of his earnings. So great a stimulus was this 
to industry that a man often became a skilled workman in two months. 
To this system the distinguished count attributed the surprising reform¬ 
atory results mentioned above. 

Mr. Hibbert, M. P., of England, said that an act of Parliament of 1865 
provided that the visiting magistrates might, under the sanction of the 
home secretary, substitute other forms of hard labor for the tread-mill, 
crank, and shot-drill. In Salford prison, penal labor was required of all 
prisoners during the first three months of their sentence, after which 
they might be employed in carpet-weaving, cocoa-mat making, &c. 
Nor was the penal labor wholly unproductive, since the tread mill, besides 
pumping water for prison uses, supplied motive-power for the industrial 
labor. The prison earnings last year defrayed all expenses except the 
salaries of officers. The sentences were, as a rule, too short to allow of 
industrial labor being successfully carried on; out of 6,163 prisoners, 
4,116 having been sent for terms less than a month, of whom 2,031 were 
sentenced for only seven days. Industrial labor being impossible under 
such sentences, he favored penal labor on the ground of its deterrent 
influence. 

Sir John Bowring vehemently condemned the tread-mill, and rejoiced 
that continental languages had no word for it. It should be called a 
work-waster or wind-raiser. It hardened the old jail-bird, leading him to 
associate labor with non-productiveness, who well knew how to cast all 
the burden on the weaker or less experienced prisoners. 

Mr. Ploos van Amstel, of Holland, said that remunerative industrial 
labor was adopted in the Hutch prisons, a portion of the prisoners 
wages going to himself. He believed this system beneficial alike to the 
state and to the prisoner. 

Colonel Colvill, governor of Coldbath Fields prison, London, said 
that he had the largest tread mill in England in his prison, six hundred 
men being employed on it at one time. He never knew a man improved 
by it. On the other hand, accidents frequently occurred; many had 
their legs and arms broken; very recently a man undergoing a short 
sentence broke both his legs. It was, moreover, unfair, since the old 
hands could readily shift all the labor on their younger associates, 
who, especially if weak-cliested, were sometimes injured for life. 

Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, protested against all labor the tendency of 
which was to brutalize the prisoner. Penal labor was unknown on the 
continent. 

Hr. Mount said that during his experience in India he had found 
non-productive labor brutalizing. The tread mill was tried at Calcutta, 
but caused many accidents and was abolished as cruel and unjust, 
H. Ex. 185-10 


146 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


The anger and bitterness shown by prisoners on ascending or descend¬ 
ing it had always made him feel that it was unchristian. To make 
prisoners miserable is not the true way to regenerate them. They must 
have an interest in their work, and be taught to apply it to useful pur¬ 
poses. The prisoners under his charge had, during the last five or six 
years of his administration, repaid by their labor 40 per cent, of the 
cost of their maintenance, thus relieving the tax-payers and preserving 
the convicts’ self-respect. 

Dr. Frey, of Austria, said that in the Austrian prisons industrial 
labor prevailed. This alone would call forth the full working powers of 
the prisoner. 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

THE PRISONER AFTER IIIS LIBERATION. 

§ 1. Best mode of aiding discharged prisoners. —Mr. Murray Browne, 
secretary of the Metropolitan Discharged Prisoners’ Belief Society of 
London, opened the discussion with a paper showing the operation of 
the English system of aiding liberated prisoners. The thirty-four 
societies established for this purpose are all voluntary associations of 
benevolent persons. The majority, however, possess a semi-official 
character, from the fact that the gratuities allowed by law to the pris¬ 
oner on his discharge are, instead of being given to him directly, placed 
in the hands of a prisoners’ aid society in trust, the society being re¬ 
quired to account for each sum so received, which varies in amount 
from a few shillings to <£3. The additional funds required by the socie¬ 
ties for the prosecution of their work are raised by voluntary contri¬ 
bution. 

These societies may be divided into two classes: those which assist 
men and those which assist women. Of the former, only two maintain 
homes or refuges. The most important of these is the Wakefield In¬ 
dustrial Home, where discharged prisoners are maintained as inmates, 
and kept at industrial work, often for a considerable time, until employ¬ 
ment can be procured for them elsewhere. 

This system has been tried in many other parts of England; but, 
although its success at Wakefield has been admirable, elsewhere it has 
failed, and a majority of the societies prefer another plan. They aim to 
find work for the prisoner as soon as possible, to provide him with pecu¬ 
niary support while waiting, and to aid him morally, by advice and 
assistance, as far as may be in their power. The most difficult part of 
their task is the finding of employment. For this purpose a paid agent 
—usually an old police-officer—is employed, who is required to use great 
judgment and perseverance. It is found, in general, that the prisoner’s 
best chance lies in a return to his own neighborhood, there to resume 
his former trade or occupation. Emigration is very seldom resorted to, 
chiefly on account of expense. Many lads are sent to sea in the mer¬ 
chant-service. As a rule, the difficulties in the way of obtaining situa¬ 
tions for discharged male prisoners are not of such a nature that they 
cannot be overcome by tact and energy. There are, however, some per¬ 
sons fitted only for situations involving trust, such as clerks and others, 
for whom it is very hard to find employment. The society with which 
Mr. Browne is himself connected has, for the past eight years, aided five 
hundred liberated prisoners annually; and it has been the experience of 
that organization that it is never necessary to turn adrift a man able 


AID TO DISCHARGED PRISONERS. 


147 


and willing to work because no work could be found for him. This, Mr. 
Browne stated, was the general experience of prisoners 7 aid societies 
throughout England. And it further appears, from the records of his 
society and others, that not more than 5 per cent, of those who have 
been assisted in finding work have been recommitted. 

The societies which aid discharged female prisoners have, in some 
respects, a more difficult task, since, with the exception of a certain 
number of first convictions, almost all convicted women in England are 
prostitutes as well as thieves, thus requiring a double treatment. Be¬ 
sides which, private families very naturally object to receiving women 
fresh from the prison walls, the genuineness of whose reformation has 
not been tested. Accordingly, all female prisoners’ aid societies employ 
homes of some sort or other. 

The refuges for convict -women ( i . e., women who have been sentenced 
to five years’ penal servitude) are three in number, and possess a defi¬ 
nite official character, somewhat resembling the intermediate prisons of 
the Crofton, or Irish, system. No prisoner is allowed to enter them 
until she has received a certain number of marks , in prison and has 
served a fixed proportion of her sentence, when she receives a ticket of 
leave and, at her own request enters the home, from which she may be 
returned to the prison for misconduct. While she remains at the refuge, 
she is employed in industrial labor. When the sentences of the inmates 
expire, the managers find employment—usually at domestic service— 
for all those who require it. The results are of the most satisfactory 
description. These homes for co?mc£-women, being, in one sense, a part 
of the prison system, are partially supported by the state, but in part also 
by voluntary contributions. 

Other societies aiding discharged female prisoners exercise their own 
discretion as td the women they receive into their homes. They have 
no legal control over the inmates, nor do they receive any considerable 
assistance from state funds. They usually place their proteges at do¬ 
mestic service when they leave the homes. 

Mr. Browne stated that the societies in general found themselves 
greatly hampered in their work by the want of funds, which, he re¬ 
marked, was to be deplored on economic as well as reformatory grounds, 
since the pecuniary gain to the state-coffers from the reformation of even 
a few prisoners would pay the whole expense of a prisoners’ aid society 
over and over again. He was of opinion, therefore, that liberal assist¬ 
ance should be granted from the public funds to these organizations. 

Mr. Powell, of New York, believed it to be the duty of government to 
found asylums for discharged prisoners, which should not be called 
prisons or houses of refuge, but industrial institutions. These institu¬ 
tions he would have conducted in some measure on the co-operative 
plan, so that the laborer should share the advantages of his toil. In 
addition to these establishments there should be in every community 
voluntary societies for aiding discharged prisoners. Lastly, he believed 
that prisoners should be taught the lesson of abstinence from intoxi¬ 
cating liquors as a beverage. 

M. d’Alinge, of Saxony, considered the question under discussion a 
most important one. There were in his country several societies for the 
aid of liberated prisoners, Iving John having founded the first forty years 
ago. Lately these societies had been extending help to the families of 
discharged prisoners also. 

Mr. ltankin, of England, said that he was honorary secretary of a 
society which undertook the care of prisoners discharged from convict- 
prisons exclusively, while the other thirty-three societies took care of 


148 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


those discharged from county prisons. The record of re-convictions 
from 18G9 to 1871 showed that of those whom his society had aided less 
that 6 per cent, had relapsed into crime. 

Baron Mackay, of Holland, stated that in the Netherlands a society 
for the aid of discharged prisoners had existed since 1823. Members 
of the society visit the prisons and distribute good books to the in¬ 
mates. On a prisoner’s discharge the society tries to find a situation 
for him, gives him clothing and tools, or, rather, pays for his emigration. 
Especially are juvenile offenders made the object of its care. The 
society formerly maintained, at the city of Leyden, a school for the 
training of this class of delinquents for the navy. Unfortunately, how¬ 
ever, owing to the refusal of the government to receive the inmates as 
volunteers, this institution had to be abandoned. The society has many 
branches in different places in Holland, and in sundry towns it has 
ladies’ committees to visit female prisoners and promote their getting 
situations after their discharge. Experience has shown how eminently 
fit ladies are for these duties. 

Mrs. Meredith, of England, founder and manager of an establishment 
for the aid of discharged female prisoners, presented a paper in which 
the increased proportion, year by year, of recommitments of women 
was noticed, and the proposition that it was impossible to help this 
class of criminals efficiently without the aid of women was strenuously 
urged. 

Bev. Mr. E. Bobin, honorary secretary of the Paris Protestant Dis¬ 
charged Prisoners’ Aid Society, said that in France the work of caring 
for discharged prisoners (called patronage) embraced industrial, moral, 
and religious instruction. Its aim was twofold, viz : First, to improve 
the prisoners’ moral condition: and, secondly, to remove the distrust 
felt toward them, thus removing the two chief causes off their relapse 
into crime. The patronage extended by the Paris society commences 
by making a selection of the prisoners, through visiting them while 
in confinement, and by supplying them with religious books. On his 
discharge, the prisoner receives a card, and is thereby constituted a 
protege of the society, who furnish him with food and clothing (no 
money is given) for a few days. When he obtains work, the society 
still watches over him, and he is required to report to them every 
change of residence, the society still lending him material aid and 
moral support until he has become completely rehabilitated. This sys¬ 
tem had proved very efficacious, not more than 5 per cent, of those so 
aided having relapsed into crime. Mr. Bobin particularly urged the 
necessity of the aid societies having free access to the prisoners before 
their discharge. 

Mr. Murray Browne agreed with Mr. Bobin that patronage should 
begin in the prison, and observed that that was practically done in 
England, since the chaplain was invariably either a member or the sec¬ 
retary of a prisoners’ aid society. 

A member from France presented an account of the work of the pat¬ 
ronage committee of Protestant ladies at Montpelier. This society 
maintains a home for discharged Protestant female prisoners, where 
religious instruction is given, and the managers of which endeavor to 
find situations for those inmates who give satisfactory evidence of ref¬ 
ormation. The results were represented as most gratifying. 

» Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, thought that the assistance given to 
discharged prisoners should be both moral and industrial, and should 
be given both by the state and by voluntary societies. Nor should the 
importance of teaching prisoners a trade in prison be overlooked, since 


REHABILITATION OF PRISONERS. 


149 


this would be of material assistance to them on discharge. Employ¬ 
ment, too, should be provided for them as soon as possible, lest the 
prisoner, while wandering about in search of work, should lose his 
desire for it and once more fall into evil ways. The prevalent opinion 
in Switzerland was that the Crofton system best attained these desired 
objects. 

Mr. Bremner, of England, said that the experience of prisoners’ aid 
societies in that country showed but little success in dealing with female 
criminals, which he attributed in great measure to the fact that female 
visitors and agents were not employed. The aid furnished to the socie¬ 
ties by the state, too, was inadequate. So important did he consider 
the work of aiding discharged prisoners that he believed that some plan 
of moral and material assistance should be embodied in the criminal 
legislation of a country, to become as definite a part of the general sys¬ 
tem as are the trial and imprisonment of the offender. 

§ 2. Best means of securing the rehabilitation of prisoners. —Mr. Stevens, 
of Belgium, said that the rehabilitation, to be complete, must be both 
moral and legal. The former was to be obtained by giving each prisoner 
instruction in the particular religion which he professed. The most 
perfect religious freedom is preserved in the Belgian prisons, and he 
earnestly contended for the same freedom in the prisons of all countries. 
The legal rehabilitation of the prisoner was to be effected, in his judg¬ 
ment, by freeing him from all restrictions, save those to which honest 
men are subjected. To make the forfeiture of political rights consequent 
upon imprisonment was to hang a weight around the prisoner who was 
striving to regain his position. A special patronage might be awarded 
to convicts whose conduct was good during imprisonment, which should 
be exercised over women by women and over men by men. He did not 
favor police supervision of criminals, as practised on the continent, 
although the friendly supervision contemplated by the Crofton system 
met with his approval. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, said that by act of Parliament any bench 
of magistrates in charge of a jail might employ, in addition to the regu¬ 
lar Protestant chaplain, a Roman Catholic chaplain, and pay his salary 
out of the funds at their disposal. There was then a bill before Parlia¬ 
ment making the employment of such chaplains compulsory. 

Sir Walter Crofton said that in all the Irish prisons there were em¬ 
ployed, in addition to the chaplain belonging to the Church of England, 
Roman Catholic and Presbyterian chaplains. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Boston, thought that in dealing with this 
question it should be borne in mind that, as Mr. Emerson had said of 
the death of his child, u perhaps the world, and not the infant, failed.” 
Too frequently the “ failure” was rather on the part of society than of 
the prisoner. 

Baron Mackay was not in favor of the rehabilitation of prisoners be¬ 
ing effected by a judicial decree. The most perfect religious freedom 
prevailed in the prisons of Holland and Germany. 

Mr. Baker, of England, said that the loss of character suffered by a 
prisoner in consequence of his incarceration was a wholesome and 
natural part of his punishment. He maintained that it should not be 
easy for a liberated convict to obtain attractive and remunerative situa¬ 
tions ; he ought to begin his new career with a lower kind of work, and rise 
to higher positions as he showed himself worthy. Supervision, as prac¬ 
tised in England, was a powerful instrument in the rehabilitation of the 
prisoner ; it was very rare to find a man under supervision out of work. 

Hr. Wines enumerated the civil rights which, in most of the states of 


150 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the American Union, were forfeited by a conviction for felony, and ex¬ 
plained the u commutation-laws v of his country, under which a convict 
may shorten his term by good conduct. In several of the states, he said, 
an irreproachable prison record wrought, of itself, a complete legal re¬ 
habilitation of the prisoner, restoring him at once to all his civil rights. 

Hon. Mr. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, stated that a conviction for fel¬ 
ony in that State did not work a forfeiture of any political rights. 

Sir John Pakington, of England, deprecated what he had conceived 
to be an implication on the part of Mr. Stevens that Koman Catholics 
were not allowed religious freedom in English prisons. He claimed 
that the English people were universally opposed to the ignoring of de¬ 
nominational differences among prisoners, and stated that as a member 
of Parliament he had supported the bill mentioned by Mr. Hastings, re¬ 
quiring county jail authorities to employ Poman Catholic chaplains.* 

§ 3. Best mode of giving remission of sentences and regulating conditional 
discharges .—Sir Walter Crofton said that remission of sentences and 
conditional liberation were now interwoven with the convict-system of 
the United Kingdom. The maximum remission to convicts sentenced 
to penal servitude was a fourth of their term, after deducting the nine 
months spent in solitary confinement. The title of a man to remission 
of sentence was determined by a system of marks, by which he advanced 
from class to class, until, according to his deserts as thus indicated, he ob¬ 
tained a partial or entire remission. This system, in effect, amounted 
to a partial substitution of labor-sentences for time-sentences. Sir Walter 
defended the system of public-works prisons at some length, saying that 
they were based on progressive classification, and pointing to the vindica¬ 
tion of the Irish system by a recent parliamentary investigating com¬ 
mittee, known as Lord Deven’s commission. He regarded conditional 
liberation, combined with registration, as the only reliable mode of test¬ 
ing the value of prison training and of obtaining trustworthy criminal 
statistics, without which there can be little unity of action. He was of 
opinion that it was a great protection to society, since it surrounded the 
commission of crime with obstructions so formidable as to deter habitual 
offenders. 

Mr. Tallack, of England, in reply to Sir Walter’s defense of the pub¬ 
lic-works prisons, defended the cellular system, as approved by the con¬ 
gresses of Utrecht and Frankfort, preventing companionship with evil 
and allowing abundant communication with good. He called attention 
to the fact that a few months ago a convict at Spike Island had mur¬ 
dered a fellow-prisoner, and stated that there had been repeated murders 
at Portland, Chatham, and other public-works ])risons. 

Mr. Stevens stated that in Belgium conditional liberation was arrived 
at in another way from that employed in England. Keduction of time 
was allowed; but as separate detention without possibility of demorali¬ 
zation, and with intercourse with good counselors, was preferred to con¬ 
gregate labor, the reduction depended not so much on a prisoners con¬ 
duct as on his having undergone a period of separation proportionate 
to the sentence. There were certain privileges to be earned by good 
conduct, however, among which was liberation with curtailment or re¬ 
mission of police supervision. In cases of exemplary conduct and entire 
reform, the royal prerogative of pardon was exercised. Life-prisoners 
were kept in cellular confinement for ten years, w hen, if they were con¬ 
sidered worthy of it, conditional liberation w^as granted them. If un- 


* The bill alluded to was withdrawn before the close of the session, owino- to a want 
of time in the House of Commons to discuss it. 




CONDITIONAL LIBERATION-POLICE SUPERVISION. 151 

worthy they were collected in a common prison, without hope of release. 
The result of this system was that the proportion of recidivists to those 
convicted of a first offense was but 4 or 5 per cent.; and the annual 
number of criminals had declined from 7,000, to 4,000, in spite of increas¬ 
ing population and wealth. 

Hon. Joseph R. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, replying to Sir Walter Crof- 
ton’s defense of the.English system of granting u tickets of license,” 
said that in the Eastern penitentiary of his State there were forty con¬ 
victs who had received these licenses. lie was no friend to a system 
which led men to pretend to be reformed, and declared his decided pref¬ 
erence for the cellular over the Crofton system. He denied that that 
system was u solitary,” and avowed that the only solitude it involved 
was a solitude as to demoralizing influences. Besides which it saved a 
man who was trying to lead a new life from being taunted by a former 
fellow-prisoner with being an ex-convict , thus often bringing upon him 
unmerited suspicion. 

Mr. Frederic Hill regretted to hear of the invasion of Pennsylvania 
by ticket-of-leave men; but by way of explanation stated that the sys¬ 
tem, as formerly administered, did not, as now, make liberation depend 
upon good conduct; and he thought that the men mentioned by Mr. 
Chandler must have been liberated under the discarded system. As an 
inspector of prisons, he had at first favored the cellular system, but ex¬ 
perience had weaned him from it. Mere isolation, while excellent as a 
part of a system, was not a system per se. Under the separate system, 
the absence of temptation rendered it difficult to test reformation. 

Major Du Cane, chairman of the directors of English convict-prisons, 
said that in these institutions a prisoner was obliged to etfect his dis¬ 
charge by his industry. The maximum remission of sentence was one- 
fourth of the time remaining after serving out his nine months of sep¬ 
arate confinement. Great precautions were taken to insure the remis¬ 
sion being justly awarded. When conditionally liberated, a prisoner 
was under the supervision of the police, to whom he was obliged to re¬ 
port himself. If he gave evidence of going astray, the police might 
take him before a magistrate, and on proof of his misconduct he was 
sent back to prison. 

Mr. Neviu, one of the directors of the western penitentiary of Penn¬ 
sylvania, gave an account of the change made in that prison from the 
cellular to the congregate system, which, he said, had been attended 
with great benefit. 

Dr. Frey, of Austria, said that in that country cellular imprisonment 
was limited to three years; after that portion of his sentence had ex¬ 
pired, a prisoner was placed under the congregate system. For him¬ 
self, he favored such a combination of the two systems. A prisoner 
should mingle with his fellow-convicts, so as to become prepared for 
re-entering society, since, if kept entirely in solitary confinement, he 
would not be likely to withstand temptation on his release. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, remarked that keeping a prisoner apart 
was like keeping the hand on a spring; the moment you lifted your 
hand, it flew up. When a. mau thus treated was discharged, the 
change was so great that he was almost certain to fall back into his 
original habits. He should be educated for liberation, after passing 
through the cellular stage, by associating with his fellow-criminals; 
and next by going to an intermediate prison, where he had much 
greater liberty, and where a further test was applied. If he still went 
on well, and gradually acquired habits of industry and fitness for lib¬ 
erty, he passed into the further stage of liberation under supervision. 


152 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


§ 4. Supervision of discharged convicts. —Mr. Baker, of England, 
opened the discussion by explaining the law of England on this sub¬ 
ject. Under that law, a person convicted a second time of felony may 
be condemned, in addition to imprisonment, to police supervision for a 
period not exceeding seven years. He must, at the end of each month, 
report himself and give an account of his conduct either to the police 
or some person authorized to receive his report. He must give notice 
of a change of residence to the police of the district which he leaves 
and of that to which he goes. The police, as long as he complies with 
the law, always prove his friends, assisting him in finding work and 
giving him, in case of need, money furnished by the prisoners 7 aid soci¬ 
eties. This system, Mr. Baker contended, was kind to the supervised, 
offering him complete liberty as long as he conducted well, and exercis¬ 
ing over him that friendly guardianship so useful to persons of infirm 
moral character. Moreover, it seemed to the public a protection of 
seven years instead of one, and allowed the term of imprisonment to 
be shortened by one-half, thus saving one-lialf the total cost of his 
expenses. 

Mr. E. Hill remarked that Rev. Mr. Clay organized supervision 
in Lancashire years before Parliament adopted it. He found it caused 
a diminution of crime and was beneficial to the prisoners, the police 
helping them to obtain work. 

Mr. Murray Browne said it was sometimes alleged that the police su¬ 
pervision would prevent prisoners getting work, but prisoners 7 aid soci¬ 
eties knew that this was not the case. Last year, on the home secre¬ 
tary taking their opinion, thirteen societes out of sixteen were favorable 
to the system. 

Mr. Stevens contended that, in countries where an organized police 
existed, discharged prisoners should be under no more supervision than 
other citizens. In Belgium a man might be sent by the police to a 
small place, not being permitted to go to large communities, but he 
might not find work there, and would be, in consequence, likely to relapse. 


CHAPTER XX. 


MISCELLANEOUS POINTS. 

§ 1. Whether prison officers need special training for their work. —Dr. 
Guillaume, of Switzerland, opened the discussion, maintaining the affirm¬ 
ative of the question. He laid down the positions that it is for the in¬ 
terest of society that criminals should be reformed, and that they will 
become good only when unceasingly surrounded by good influences. 
Prom these premises he argued that the inferior as well as the higher 
officers of a prison should be acquainted with the moral and pedagogic 
means of penitentiary treatment, which acquaintance involved a recog¬ 
nition of the principle that a special education of prison officers is neces¬ 
sary and indispensable. It was for each country to determine whether 
it is desirable to establish normal schools for this purpose, or whether 
the employes should pass a preparatory training in a prison, or receive 
a course of periodical theoretic teaching. Speaking for himself, he 
wished the school for training prison officers to be in connection with 
a prison. Having selected men of ordinary intelligence, command of 
temper, &c., they should be put into the training prison to learn their 
work, after which they should be promoted according to merit, until, 


EDUCATION OF PRISON OFFICERS. 


15a 


possibly, they reached the top. These remarks did not apply to the 
governors or wardens of prisons, who should possess superior qualifica¬ 
tions, and be endowed with a kind heart, sound judgment, general knowl¬ 
edge, and good temper. In conclusion, Dr. Guillaume said that he might 
summarize his views on this topic in the resolution adopted by the Prison 
Congress of Cincinnati in 1870, viz: 

Special training, as well as high qualities of head and heart, is required to make a 
good prison or reformatory officer. The administration of public punishment will not 
become scientific, uniform, and successful until it is raised to the dignity of a profes¬ 
sion, and men are specially trained for it as they are for other pursuits. 

Major Du Cane, director of English convict-prisons, thought that 
prison officers, like physicians and soldiers, should learn their duty from 
actual experience. Xo preliminary instruction could be as valuable as 
seeing the supervision of skilled officials in actual practice. He believed 
that the tone of the English prison officials was all that it should be. 
A moderate amount of intelligence and education was required, and due 
care was taken to secure these qualifications, as well as firmness, hon¬ 
esty, and good temper. It was expected of them to convince the pris¬ 
oners that society was not their enemy, but only wished to show them 
the way of well-doing. He believed that the prison officials in England 
did their duty efficiently, and that when recruits entered such a body 
they entered the best school in which to learn their duties. 

Baron Mackay, of Holland, said that Dutch legislation discouraged 
technical education, believing that better material was found in a man 
with a general education than in one trained ad hoc. In the cellular 
prison at Amsterdam (the largest in Holland) it had not been found 
necessary to employ specially-trained officers. He agreed with Dr. 
Guillaume that training was desirable if it could be obtained within the 
prison-walls; but he objected to a normal school outside the prison for 
the inculcation of theories. He favored the promotion of subalterns, se 
trained, as vacancies occurred in the prison staff. 

Sir Harry Verney, M. P., while not doubting that persons taken from 
the intelligent classes might make good prison officers, was, neverthe¬ 
less, of the opinion that persons specially trained to the work would be 
more efficient. It had occurred to him, Why should not prison governors- 
be selected from the subaltern officials? In England they were taken 
from the army and navy; but it might, perhaps, be better to advance 
prison officers. Many years ago, while visiting Dr. Wichern, at the 
Bauhe Haus, near Hamburg, he had seen there a number of young men 
being educated to take the place of officers in the prisons at Berlin. 
The idea struck him favorably at the time, and subsequent reflection 
had confirmed him in his opinion. 

Mr. Ratlibone, of England, pointed out an objection to the promotion 
of subalterns to the highest offices, viz, that the salaries now given did 
not attract men of education to these posts. A governor needed quick 
perception of character and great firmness—qualities, in his opinion, 
not specially cultivated by prison life. 

Major Eulf'ord, governor of Stafford jail, England, thought it would 
be absurd to have a normal school for subordinate officers. At his jail, 
such officers were always taken on probation, and, if found incompetent, 
were dismissed. 

Dr. Mouat,of England, thought that, what the hospital and dissecting- 
room were to the surgeon, the prison was to officials. Intelligence and 
good moral character were indispensable, but it was in practical expe¬ 
rience that they must learn their work. As to prison governors, he 
thought that, other things being equal, men should be selected who- 


154 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


were gentlemen and men of education in the broadest sense of the 
words. A prison was a moral hospital, which required a large amount 
of knowledge of mental phenomena, of religion, and education, and 
high aims in reclaiming fhe idle and vicious. Some special training was 
therefore advisable for both subordinate and superior officers. 

Dr. Wines said that M. Demetz, the founder of the reformatory at 
Mettray, was so convinced of the necessity of a special training for 
those intrusted with the care of criminal men and boys that he had es¬ 
tablished a preparatory school, and spent an entire year with his col¬ 
leagues in training twelve or fifteen young men as officers before he ad¬ 
mitted a single inmate. The school had been kept up ever since, with 
twenty-five to thirty young men constantly in attendance, having a 
three years’ course of training, and M. Demetz was strongly of opinion 
that Mettray would not have succeeded without it. The success of this 
reformatory probably surpassed that of any other institution in the 
world, scarcely 5 per cent, of those who left it ever returning to a career 
of crime. 

§ 2. Whether transportation is admissible and expedient in punishment 
of crime .—Count de Foresta, of Italy, in opening the discussion, said 
that transportation, as carried on in France—transportation with com¬ 
pulsory labor in a colony—he approved of as the best punishment for great 
criminals, believing that it answered perfectly the double object of all 
punishment, viz, the protection of society within the limits of justice, 
and the reformation or amendment of the convict. It protects society 
by casting out from its bosom the most dangerous criminals, avoiding 
the grave inconveniences of relapses, and deterring would-be criminals 
by the prospect of banishment from their country and family. It en¬ 
courages the convict by giving him a hope of becoming again useful to 
society and beginning a new life far from his old haunts, whither he 
may bring his family, or, if he have none, may found a new one. While 
thus approving of the main features of the French, as distinguished 
from the English, system of transportation, the count pointed out the 
defects of the latter and criticised them sveerely. 

Mr. Pols, of Holland, thought that to send convicts to another coun¬ 
try was unfair. It sent to a new colony, the natives were doomed to 
extermination. If the convicts were colonized, their descendants would, 
as in the English colonies, object to receive them, and the system would 
again have to be changed. Transportation for any length of time was 
impracticable. 

Count Sollobub, of Eussia, thought that transportation might be ben¬ 
eficial if a locality were selected which needed colonization and cultiva¬ 
tion and external aid for the development of its resources. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, remarked that to send convicts to an 
inhabited country was to wrong its citizens, who would, when the 3 r were 
able, resist it. To send them to an uninhabited country was merely to 
send them to a prison ten thousand or twelve thousand miles off, far 
removed from public supervision, a system always liable to great abuse. 
Moreover, the cost of the support of the convict was as great or greater 
as at home, an'dfflie expense of the voyage had to be incurred in addition. 

Count de Foresta, in reply, said that he totally disapproved of trans¬ 
portation as formerly practised under the English law. He advocated 
sending convicts under life or fifteen or twenty year sentences to distant 
and, if possible, uninhabited regions, with separation at night and com¬ 
pulsory labor. When such colonies ultimately refused to receive con¬ 
victs, (as the Australian colonies had,) it would be time enough to 
consider what should be done. 


TRANSPORTATION—LABOR WITHOUT IMPRISONMENT. 


155 


Baron von Holtzendorff thought that the experience of England was 
strongly against transportation, but that the question should be left 
open to the .decision of countries that believed themselves to be placed 
under better conditions than England. 

§ 3. Whether short imprisonments and the non-payment of fines may he 
replaced by compulsory labor without privation of liberty .—Count de Fo¬ 
resta, of Italy, explained to the congress a pian for effecting the end 
proposed in the title of the present section. He pointed out the evils 
attendant upon the imposing of sentences too short to admit of instruc¬ 
tion or reformation, yet long enough to allow of the prisoner becoming 
morally corrupted. He believed that these evils might be diminished, if 
not entirely removed, by substituting for imprisonment obligatory labor 
during the day, leaving the condemned free to return to their families 
in the evening, like ordinary laborers. Again, as regards the payment 
of fines, since labor is the poor man’s capital, the count urged that it 
would be more logical for society to re imburse itself by means of his 
labor than to fling him into a cell, where he produced nothing. He ad¬ 
mitted that this plan would prove difficult in execution, but denied that 
it was impracticable, and instanced many ways in which the condemned 
might be employed. He thought the system could be made applicable, 
•especially in localities where there were large barren tracts to be re¬ 
el aimed, or roads to be constructed. 

Mr. Tallack, of England, remarked that the treatment of vagrants 
in that country was analogous to that proposed by Count de Foresta for 
petty offenders, which he approved, and would be glad to see adopted. 
It would prove beneficial to the offender himself in many instances, and 
the worst portion of the community would be deterred without breaking 
up homes and ruining families. 

Rev. Mr. Collins, of England, favored the plan proposed by Count de 
Foresta. He had seen the agony caused in a respectable family by its 
principal member being committed to prison and branded as a jail-bird. 
Imprisonment should be made an object of dread, by surrounding it 
with disgrace and resorting to it as seldom as possible. He had long had 
misgivings, as a magistrate, whether he had not helped men to become 
criminals, rather than deterred them, by the imperative way in which 
the law required him to substitute short imprisonments for fines. By 
sending men to prison for a mere trivial offense, the feeling of shame 
was broken down, whereas self-respect should be maintained. 

Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, thought that practically there would be 
found inconveniences in the system. Some prisoners were unaccustomed 
to manual labor. Again, how could employment be found for painters, 
musicians, &c. ? Work in public would lack the penal element neces¬ 
sary in prison discipline, even for trifling offenses, and there would be 
some danger in collecting a dangerous class of men together, without the 
privation of liberty. He preferred to shut men up and subject them to 
moral influence. 

Sir John Bowring considered the plan entirely feasible, if the condition 
of individual offenders and the circumstances of the locality were taken 
into account. In an agricultural district the men might be employed 
in agriculture, while in town they would be accustomed to various trades, 
which might be carried on by them. He once found a locksmith in a 
solitary cell earning seven shillings a day. 

Baron Mackay, of Holland, regarded the proposal as chimerical. If 
the condemned received less than his wonted compensation, the punish¬ 
ment fell more heavily on his family than on himself. If, on the other 
hand, he received full pay, the only change in his mode of life being 


156 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


working in one place instead of another, where would be the punish¬ 
ment! It would be a punishment only for those unaccustomed to man¬ 
ual labor, to whom it would be an aggravation rather than an .alleviation, 
while, in such cases, mere intellectual work, if allowed, would be too 
slight a punishment. 

Mr. Bremner, an English magistrate, thought the imposition of fines 
a very unequal punishment, and believed that, in case of inability to pay 
a fiue, justice demanded some other alternative than imprisonment. 

Baron von Holtzendorlf would point to Prussia as a proof of the 
feasibility of the scheme. For twenty years there had existed a law 
providing labor as a substitute for a line in the case of offenses against 
the forest-laws and wood-stealing. 

§ 4. The proper limits of the poicer of boards of prison managers as re¬ 
gards the administration of prisons. —M. Loyson, of France, said that, 
in his country, there were regularly-appointed commissioners of super¬ 
vision, whose functions were carefully defined. Their special mission 
consisted in promoting the moral and religious reformation of the con¬ 
victs. The commissioners and the prison governors were entirely inde¬ 
pendent of each other. If the former perceived anything requiring 
correction, they notified the director, and, in case he refused to interfere, 
they might appeal to the prefect of the department or to the minister 
of the interior. Their services were entirely gratuitous, and they were 
generally chosen from the leading inhabitants of the district. He be¬ 
lieved that this system, as a whole, offered advantages which no other 
could, since the daily visits of local commissioners were better than the 
occasional visits of inspectors. 

M. Vaucher-Cremieux, of Switzerland, said that in that country the 
grand council of the canton appointed a commission, which was uncon¬ 
nected with the prison authorities and which might visit the prison at 
their discretion. They could point out defects and suggest remedies, 
but had no executive power. 

Colonel Ratcliff, of England, said that the visiting justices in each 
county saw that the law was properly administered, while the govern¬ 
ment sent down an inspector yearly to examine all the details of admin¬ 
istration. 

§ 5. Whether the government of prisons should be placed in the hands of 
one supreme central authority. —Mr. Hastings, of England, thought that 
the plan adopted in that country, of having the county jails entirely dis¬ 
tinct from the higher grade of prisons—the former being under the con¬ 
trol of the local authorities, the latter under that of the general govern¬ 
ment—was preferable to a uniform system, under which all penal 
institutions should be subject to one central authority. Such a system, 
while it would undoubtedly have its advantages, would be apt to become 
stereotyped. lie doubted whether it could be authoritatively declared 
that any one system was so far superior to all others that it ought to be 
enforced everywhere. A variety of details and an interchange, of 
opinions and experiences would probably pave the way for a better 
system than any which could be theoretically devised. 

Mr. Ploos van Amstel said that in Holland the minister of justice was 
chief administrator of prisons. A change of ministry, which was not 
infrequent, always involved the possibility of changes in prison manage¬ 
ment. To secure permanence, he thought that a council of three or four 
members should act with the minister. Local boards, nominated by 
the government, were charged with the interior administration or 
supervision of the prisons in every locality. 

Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, admitted that political decentralization had 


CENTRAL AUTHORITY—PRISON STATISTICS. 


157 


its advantages, but questioned whether this was the case with adminis¬ 
trative decentralization. In Belgium, all prisons were under a uniform 
system. If a local commission suggested an improvement, it was con¬ 
sidered by the central authority, and, if approved, was introduced in all 
prisons. Punishment as well as law surely ought to be uniform. 

Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, said that each of the twenty-five Swiss 
cantons had its own legislature and administration, thus preventing any 
uniformity. He believed, however, that a central authority (he would 
say the minister of the interior) should have the direction of prisons, 
refuges, and similar institutions having a preventive or other effect on 
crime. 

Messrs. Carter and Baker, of England, warmly defended the English 
system of local management for local prisons. County magistrates, in 
their opinion, were better acquainted with the feelings of the people, and 
could therefore manage the jails better than a central authority. 

§ G. International prison statistics. —Mr. Beltrani-Scalia, of Italy, said 
that it was needless to show the utility of penitentiary statistics, which 
alone could furnish legislators with the elements necessary for a reform 
of the penal system, and which, moreover, would furnish judges with 
valuable hints in the application of punishment. He deplored the want 
of success which had attended the recommendations and efforts put forth 
in this direction by the prison congresses of 1858 and 18G3, and by the 
statistical congresses of 1857,1860, and 1870. He thought that an interna¬ 
tional commission ought to be appointed, comprising representatives of 
the different countries, which would lay down the basis of international 
prison statistics, leaving each government free to determine the form 
and time of the official publications it considered useful. The statistical 
congress at the Hague, in 1870, had expressed a wish that the tables be 
prepared, not only in the language of the country, but also in French. 
He regarded the suggestion as a good one. 

Count Solloliub, of Russia, considered the suggestion of Mr. Beltrani- 
Scalia with regard to an international commission not only wise, but 
feasible. He felt sure no country would refuse to co-operate. 

Dr. Frey, of Austria, thought that a comparison between different 
countries would be attended with some difficulty, though he hoped not 
insuperable. A different percentage, under different systems might be 
due to nationality, not to system. Thus, if the question arose how many 
persons suffered from lunacy under isolated and how many under congre¬ 
gate imprisonment, the percentage of lunacy in the country should be 
considered. So with regard to the rate of mortality in prisons. 

Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, urged the importance of criminal 
statistics as a guide to prison-reformers. Minute information should be 
obtained of the criminal, so that the springs of crime might be ascer¬ 
tained and dried up. 

Professor Leone Levi, of England, proposed that an international com¬ 
mission be appointed by this congress to lay down the principles of a 
yearly statistical report on crime and prison discipline. Uniformity 
of nomenclature of crime was indispensable in order to ascertain its 
increase or decrease. What was murder in one country was not mur¬ 
der in another. A system should be devised that would guard against 
ambiguity in this regard. 

§ 7. The best means of repressing criminal capitalists. —Mr. Edwin 
Hill, of England, began the discussion by reading a paper on this sub¬ 
ject. He thought that the public mind was at fault in not having, as 
yet, grasped the important truth that crime on a large scale is a craft, 
so far organized as to require the co-operation of labor and capital for 


158 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


its successful operation. These u criminal capitalists’- he divided into 
four classes, viz : 1, the providers of homes for the predatory classes— 
i. e., owners of real property occupied by thieves ; 2, keepers of “ dash- 
houses,” or establishments wherein thieves meet for purposes of carou¬ 
sal and to plot the crimes they intend to perpetrate ; 3, booty-mongers, 
or receivers of stolen property, called, in thieves’ slang, “ fences $” and, 
4, the inventors and manufacturers of burglarious implements. He 
believed and knew that so dependent were thieves upon these four 
classes of capitalists, if the supporting capital were withdrawn, thiev¬ 
ing, as a vocation, must cease. He instanced two distressing evils 
which, in such case, could not fail to be suppressed, viz, first, the birth 
and nurture of children so environed by criminality as to have, practi¬ 
cally, no means of escape ; and, secondly, the street-corruption of honest 
men’s children by evil associations and the enticement to pilfer now 
offered by the purchasers of petty pilferings. He admitted that organ¬ 
ized criminality would cease as entirely, could the mere operative thieves 
all be driven from the field, but urged that the want of success that 
has so far attended the vast efforts put forth and the enormous ex¬ 
pense incurred by society in seeking to effect this was an argument to 
try the plan that he had suggested, which he considered much more 
certain, far less expensive, and equally effectual. He pointed out what 
he considered to be numerous defects in the existing English law on 
this subject, and suggested changes for the purpose of, first, effectually 
deterring the owners of real property from suffering it to become a 
refuge for criminals; and,secondly,to render the conviction of receivers 
of stolen property more easy than it now is. He also urged the justice 
of heavily mulcting all capital found aiding the operations of criminals 
to defray the enormous expense of police, prisons, &c. 

Mr. Serjeaut Cox, of England, said that in that country a law had 
been recently passed increasing the minimum quantity which a marine- 
store keeper or junk-dealer was allowed to purchase, this class of deal¬ 
ers being usually encouragers of petty pilfering by purchasing the 
stolen bits of iron, old rope, and other articles purloined by children. 
The effect of this law had been to materially reduce the number of such 
crimes, and he believed if its principle were extended to other articles, 
and shop-keepers were prohibited purchasing from children under a 
certain age any commodities which they were not likely to have acquired 
rightfully, and restrictions were placed upon the hours during which 
marine-store dealers might be dealt with, very much good would proba¬ 
bly ensue. In the court over which he presided he had made it a prin¬ 
ciple always to give the receiver double the punishment inflicted on the 
thief. If this rule were universally carried out, receiving would be re¬ 
garded as a much more dangerous employment, and the limitation of the 
number would increase the check we could keep on those that re¬ 
mained. 

Hon. J. E. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, stated the law in America 
on this subject to be that the owner of stolen property could always 
compel the party in whose possession it was found to account for the 
manner in which it came into his possession, and that a house wherein 
trade in stolen goods was carried on could be dealt with as a u disor¬ 
derly house.” As to that class of capitalists who amassed wealth out 
of the ruin of one sex, he considered hanging their merited punishment. 

Colonel Ratcliff, of England, thought it impracticable to require the 
inspectors of houses to close those buildings wherein known thieves 
lived. He said that it was often an advantage to the police to know 


CRIMINAL CAPITALISTS-WHIPPING AS A PENALTY. 159 


the houses in which thieves congregated, since it enabled them more 
readily to find men of whom they were in search. 

Mr. Aspinall, of England, thought that an incorrect impression 
might be derived from Mr. Hill’s statement as to the difficulty of con¬ 
victing receivers under the English law, which was very much the same 
as Mr. Chandler had stated to be the law of his country. It would be 
an encroachment on .the liberty of the subject to allow private houses 
to be searched without special warrant, but all public houses were open 
to police visitation at any moment. All junk-dealers were required to 
take out a license, and to enter in a book, subject to police inspection, 
every transaction in metals and that sort of property which children 
were tempted to steal, from the facility with which it could be turned 
into money. Besides which, it was not uncommon in his own city (Liv¬ 
erpool) for the magistrates to punish the receiver seven times as much 
as the thief. He made these statements, fearing that strangers might 
receive an exaggerated idea of the defects of the English law in this par¬ 
ticular from Mr. Edwin Hill’s paper. 

§ 8. Whether whipping is expedient as a punishment for crime. —Mr. Eols, 
of Holland, said that, not out of sympathy with ruffians, but with honest 
people, he urged the abolitiou of bodily inflictions in punishment of 
crime, which he considered wholly inefficient as a means of social de¬ 
fense, engendering cruelty, and being far more injurious to society, 
which imposed it, than to the criminal, who suffered it. In inflicting 
punishment regard should always be had to its probable reformatory 
results The criminal’s moral and religious feelings should be respected 
and fostered, a love of order and of labor implanted, his sense of re¬ 
sponsibility and his power of self-restraint increased. To effect this, we 
must reach the understanding, the way to which was not through the 
lash. He did not believe that there were any criminals so hardened 
that this faculty could not be reached through moral suasion; 
while violence bred violence, harshness engendered hatred, hardness 
excited to revolt. In Holland, flogging had been prohibited in the 
school and the prison, and expunged from the penal code. In each in¬ 
stance, its abolition had resulted in a diminution of the offenses for 
which, previously, it had been inflicted. In the army, although not 
formally abolished, it had been practically discontinued for forty years, 
during which time insubordination had steadily decreased. He had no 
hesitation in attributing to the abolition of corporal punishment no 
small share of the happiness of Holland, and what was true of Hol¬ 
land he believed to be true of other continental states. 

Mr. Aspinall, of England, observed that apparent was not always 
real philanthropy, and that, while regarding the reformatory element of 
punishment, that which was deterrent should not be overlooked. He 
was for resorting to corporal punishment where every other agency 
failed. Wife and women beaters deserved the lash, and in the majority 
of cases no other punishment had any effect. Could any one see the 
blackened eyes, discolored flesh, and crippled forms of wretched women 
and children, he would say that the monsters who produced these de¬ 
served corporal punishment. 

Colonel Ratcliff, of England, thought that there was a certain class 
of men who were susceptible to no other influence. That it was effi¬ 
cacious he maintained was proved by the fact that, immediately after 
the passage of the act visiting garroters with corporal punishment, rob¬ 
beries with violence were no more heard of. 

Dr. Marquardsen, of Bavaria, remarked that public opinion in Eng- 


160 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


land had been unduly influenced by the garroting panic, but for which 
it would have kept pace with that of the continent on this question. 

§ 9. Extradition treaties. —Dr. Frey, of Austria, introduced this ques¬ 
tion, maintaining that the negotiation of treaties between civilized states 
for the extradition of criminals ought not to be influenced by political 
considerations. There could be no doubt, he said, that the absence of 
such treaties constituted a temptation to criminals, who knew that they 
could commit a crime, and afterward enjoy immunity from arrest in a 
neighboring state. Such treaties were, therefore, of vital importance. 

No discussion followed Dr. Frey’s remarks. 

§ 10. Woman's work in prisons. —Mrs. Chase, of Ehode Island, opened 
the discussion on this question by alluding to the efforts that have re¬ 
cently been made in several of the States in her country to secure the 
appointment of women on the boards of state-prison inspectors. She 
said that those who urged this measure based their claim primarily on 
the ground that it is the duty of women to share with men in the care, 
instruction, and reformation of criminals, and that they can best do so if 
empowered with the same authority. Criminal women especially need 
the sympathy and society of their own sex; and the women who are 
usually employed in the capacity of prison matrons are not, she thought, 
generally capable of comprehending the peculiar condition of these un¬ 
fortunates, which, on several accounts, is more deplorable than that of 
criminal men. Nor, in her opinion, was the evil remedied by volunteer 
visitation of prisons by women. While much may be accomplished 
through this means, still a woman who feels that she is so employed by 
permission only cannot fail to be greatly embarrassed ; and, if she call 
attention to any abuse, her criticism is regarded as unwarrantable inter¬ 
ference, and often leads to her exclusion. She also called attention to 
the softening influence that good women might reasonably be expected 
to exert over male criminals separated, in many cases, from their fami¬ 
lies and removed from all home associations. Again, the counsels of 
women in the board of inspectors would be valuable in all matters per¬ 
taining to the domestic economy of prison. As a member of the 
legally-constituted board of female visitors of the Ehode Island state- 
prison, she knew that the attention of the inspectors was mainly given 
to the men. As the chairman of the board of inspectors had said to her, 
u We cannot go into the women’s hospital, and we know nothing about 
it.” This inattention, which she believed to be general throughout the 
country, she attributed to three causes: first, the comparatively small 
number of women in prison made it seem less important that they should 
be looked after; secondly, good men regard a fallen woman as so much 
worse than a fallen man that they involuntarily shrink from association 
with her; and, thirdly, the public sentiment that regards fallen women as 
hopelessly lost follows them within the prison-walls, and the inspectors 
feel that they cannot hold out to them the same hopes as to men. An 
inspector had once said to her, “ We don’t know what to say to them.” 
She believed that if there was anything to say to them, if in any way 
the path to a life of virtue could be opened to them, if the stone which 
an unjust public sentiment had laid over the grave of their respecta¬ 
bility could be rolled away, it must be done by women, and from her 
own experience she knew that, to do this thoroughly and well, women 
must share with men the responsibility and authority which guide and 
control these institutions. 

Miss Mary Carpenter, of England, was not one of those who desired 
that woman should take the place of man or do man’s work, but she 
wished to define what, in her judgment, was the special work of women 


EXTRADITION TREATIES-WOMAN’S WORK IN PRISONS. 161 

ia connection with prisons. She believed that everything which con¬ 
cerned the reformation of female convicts should be solely, and the re¬ 
formation of children partly, under the care of women. Children requir¬ 
ing reformation should be placed in homes, not in prisons; and there 
can be no true home without a mother, oi a sister, or some woman to con¬ 
trol it. Ladies ought to conduct and manage reformatory schools for 
girls. She admitted that a majority of women were incapable of man¬ 
aging business arrangements in a board, but thought that they might 
be trained to it. It was also very important that the higher influence 
of educated women, when combined with an earnest, philanthropic, and 
religious spirit, should be brought to bear upon female convicts. She 
was aware of the great difficulties attending the visitation of prisons by 
women, but they had been triumphantlyi surmounted in the convict- 
prisons of Ireland, where ladies of approved position and character were 
permitted to visit the inmates, each lady confining herself exclusively 
to the denomination of female convicts to which she belonged. This 
system had worked admirably. She agreed with Mrs. Chase that lady 
visitors ought to have an official position. It was, however, when a 
woman had left prison that the good offices of her own sex were espe¬ 
cially required. She would give to ladies such a part in the reformation 
of convicts out of prison as was done at Golden Bridge, in Irelaud, in 
the institution which Sir Walter Crofton established. In that country, 
where the majority were Roman Catholics, the gentleman named had 
requested the nuns of the Golden Bridge Convent to take charge of 
female prisoners before their terms of sentence had expired, the institu¬ 
tion receiving an allowance for their maintenance from the prison author¬ 
ities. If their conduct while there is bad, they are remitted to prison ; 
if good, families were found in abundance willing to take them into 
their homes. So successful had this system proved, that out of the 
thousands of cases that had passed through it, there had been very few 
relapses. Sir Walter Crofton had, after great effort, obtained permis¬ 
sion of the government to try it in England. This he had done on a 
small scale, and with like success. The institution had been entirely 
under the control and management of women, though of course there 
had been, behind their authority, legal power to direct. 

Miss Emily Faithful, of England, desired to bear her testimony to the 
great value of the institution to wiiich Miss Carpenter had referred as 
having been founded by Sir Walter Crofton in England, and thought it 
very desirable that such establishments should exist in every part 
of the country, since it was of vital importance to a discharged female 
prisoner that an opportunity of leading a better life should be afforded 
her. But for families to receive these ^omen promiscuously into their 
homes, immediately upon their release, would be productive of more 
harm than good. She deeply felt the necessity for the appointment of 
lady-visitors, but thought that women should be specially trained for 
this work. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of America, thought that, if it were well to 
have female physicians in certain cases of bodily disease, it was equally 
important that some of the doctors of crime should be women. She 
believed that women themselves and society at large were both at fault 
in this matter. 

Mrs. Lewis, of England, spoke of her first visit to the large female 
prison at Fulham. A lady-visitor had not been seen for months, and 
the cheering influence produced by her visit, alike upon officials and in¬ 
mates, was plainly perceptible. The inference that she drew was that- 
lady-visitors could not be too often admitted to these establishments. 

H. Ex. 185-11 



162 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Mr. Bremner, of England, said that only women could approach the 
better feelings of fallen women, and he thought that the non-recogni¬ 
tion of this principle by prison managers was a grave mistake. He 
believed that lady-visitors should have an official position in female 
prisons, which would free them from the charge of meddlesome inter¬ 
ference. As a proof of the inability of men to supply the place of 
womeu in this work, he remarked that the Prisoners 7 Aid Society of 
Manchester had failed so entirely in its work among liberated female 
convicts that it had abandoned it altogether. 

Rev. Mr. Crombleholme, of England, had, as a manager of an industrial 
school for boys, felt the necessity of having a good woman to deal 
with them. A large proportion of children born in prisons and work- 
houses, or sent to work-houses, died before reaching the age of seven 
years, for want of a woman’s motherly care. He believed, moreover 
that it was impossible to reform women except through female agency. 
He believed that an official board of lady-visitors should be attached to 
every prison. 

Lady Bowring spoke of the peculiar difficulties that beset fallen 
women on attempting to reform their lives, and urged the appointment 
of an official board of ladies in connection with each female prison, who 
might awaken a desire in their breasts to lead a better life, and might 
render such an end more easily accomplished. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

PREVENTIVE AND REFORMATORY WORK. 

Rev. Charles L. Brace, secretary of the Xew York Children’s Aid So¬ 
ciety, introduced the discussion of this topic in a long, able, and inter¬ 
esting paper on the prevention of juvenile crime in large cities. He 
believed that the greatest danger to both property and life in large 
cities was from the class of ignorant, neglected, and outcast youth, the 
fearful increase of whose criminal precocity could be checked only by 
organization and combination. The task, even under the most favorable 
conditions, is one requiring great skill, judgment, and perseverance. 
The first influence needed is sympathy. The great majority of these 
outcasts cannot believe that any one cares for them. This solitude is 
what especially drives a girl to despair and ruin. When these children 
begin to learn that those more fortunate in life have a sincere sympathy 
for them, half the danger has passed away; they become susceptible to 
reforming influences and are less exposed to temptations to vice and 
crime. The second influence indispensable to the successful prosecution 
of this work is education, or school-training, which inculcates habits of 
steady labor, punctuality, and exactness, and a taste for knowledge, 
besides enabling the youth to earu his bread. To make education, how¬ 
ever, universal, it should be gratuitous and compulsory. Together with 
school-training naturally comes discipline, invaluable to these street- 
wanderers, unaccustomed as they are to self-control and submission to 
law. But, in teaching them discipline, their independence and self-help, 
so far from being checked, should be encouraged. Industrial training, 
also, should be imparted to these children. It is not desirable, however, 
to attempt self-supporting industrial movements among them, but rather 
to fit them for any occupation by teaching habits of industry. Religion 
is an indispensable element in any combination of influences designed 


PREVENTIVE AND REFORMATORY WORK. 


163 


to effect a saving work among these juvenile vagrants. Nothing else can 
strengthen them against the tide of evil influences in which they are 
placed. Mr. Brace further mentioned, as the final and best practical 
agency in efforts in large towns for this class, the plan of u placing out,” 
or emigration to country districts. This breaks up all the worst associ¬ 
ations about these unfortunate youths, takes them from their companions 
and haunts of vice,- puts them where others will respect them if they 
respect themselves, gives them the best of all labors for u minds dis¬ 
eased”—labor on the soil—opens to them a chance of success and com¬ 
petency, and places them in the most useful class in every country, the 
tillers of the ground. Besides the advantages here indicated, this plan 
commends itself on the score of economy, the expense of “ placing out ” 
being a bagatelle compared to that of a public institution, such as an 
alms-house, asylum, or reformatory for an equal number. It relieves 
the community of paupers and future criminals, and destroys hereditary 
pauperism. Mr. Brace then gave an extended account of the formation 
and work of the New York Children’s Aid Society, whose chief agency 
he stated to be “placing out” these children in country homes in the 
Western States, which has been, in his opinion, an unmingled blessing, 
and the most economical charity ever devised. The number of children 
thus sent West since the formation of the society has been 22,000, of 
whom comparatively few drift back to the city. 

Miss Mary Carpenter, the manager and founder of the Bed Lodge 
Beformatory for Girls, Bristol, England, continued the discussion by 
the reading of a most valuable paper on u The Principles and Besults of 
the English Beformatory and Certified Industrial Schools.” The system 
on which these schools are conducted has been already so fully explained 
in Part First of this report, that but a brief resume of the main points in 
the very interesting paper by Miss Carpenter will be attempted here. 
The difference between the two classes of institutions mentioned in the 
title of the paper lies in the fact that to the former may be committed 
for a certain number of years children guilty of any act punishable 
with not less than fourteen days’ previous imprisonment, while the latter 
are intended for young persons in a state of proclivity to crime. Both 
classes of schools must be established by private benevolence, but must 
be inspected by some one appointed by the secretary of state, and if he 
certify them as fit and proper for the purpose, the state grants a fixed 
sum per capita for each child sentenced to the school as long as he re¬ 
mains an inmate. This allowance is smaller in the case of industrial 
schools. A number of small institutions have been found better than a 
few large central ones. In order that a home feeling may be inspired, 
each school should be adapted to receive only fifty or sixty inmates ; if 
any institutions contain a larger number, they are divided into several 
schools,each of which occupies a separate house. In the general training, 
industrial, and if possible, out-door employment occupies a prominent 
part, the girls being taught such occupations as will prepare them for 
domestic life. At least three hours daily are devoted to religious in¬ 
struction and the ordinary branches of education. Sufficient time is 
allowed for recreation and occasional innocent gratification. The food, 
clothing, and surroundings in reformatories are such as are adapted to 
working boys aud girls, and conduce to their health and civilization, 
without giving them undue indulgence. The results of this system Miss 
Carpenter described as most encouraging. As an illustration, she men¬ 
tioned that, of seventy girls discharged from her own reformatory during 
four years, only one was reconvicted during that period, nine others 
were doubtful or unknown, and sixty were maintaining themselves re- 


164 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


spectably, six of them having been well married. But independent of 
any isolated facts or any statistics, Miss Carpenter stated that juvenile 
crime, as it existed twenty years ago, has been absolutely annihilated . 
At the outset of this reformatory work, young persons were frequently 
committed who had been in prison six or eight times; at present, cases 
of even a second conviction are uncommon. So satisfactory have been 
its results, that children who have passed through a reformatory are 
sought for, even in preference to others, as being better prepared for 
work than ordinary children. And as a final result of the reformatory 
work thus described, Miss Carpenter stated that the public interest 
had been awakened in these outcast children, and that it is now well 
understood that, in this matter at least, sound political economy and 
true Christianity are not really at variance, and the heart and con¬ 
science of the nation have been opened to bestow money and effort, as 
well as love and sympathy, to save these young ones. 

Mr. J. A. Foote, of Ohio, briefly noticed the success that had attended 
the work of the Ohio Reform School, and said that reformatory work 
was the romance of doing good. 

Mr. Vaucher-Cremieux,of Switzerland, thought that in the reformation 
of juvenile offenders the germ of crime was destroyed. He particularly 
favored agricultural colonies like Mettray, where, out of four thousand 
inmates, it was believed that there were scarcely a score who had not 
been completely regenerated. 

Mr. Hendrickson, of Wisconsin, described the school of which he is 
the superintendent, which is conducted on what is known as the family 
plan, and which had been remarkably successful. 

Mr. Howe, superintendent of the Ohio Reform Farm School, gave an 
interesting sketch of the organization, growth, and complete success of 
that institution. 

Mr. Bournat, of France, said that in that country there Were two 
-classes of reformatories, called, respectively, penitentiary and correc¬ 
tional colonies. To the former were sent young offenders sentenced to 
less than two years’ imprisonment, as well as orphans under sixteen 
who were judged not to have erred knowingly: to the latter were sent 
those sentenced for more than two years and those guilty of insubordi¬ 
nation in the penitentiary colonies. The cellular prison of La Petite 
Roquette, Paris, received minors under sixteen. .If their conduct in 
the penitentiary was good, they were surrendered to the patronage so¬ 
ciety for liberated juveniles of the Seine, which apprenticed them to a 
trade. If their conduct gave satisfaction to their masters, they were not 
interfered with; if otherwise, they were sent back to the penitentiary. 

Mr. Marshall, of England, described the boys’ reformatory at Feltham 
and that for girls at Hampstead. In the former, boys were instructed 
in practical seamanship, and were often well received by captains when 
applying for positions on ship-board on discharge. At the latter, the 
inmates were trained for domestic service, and situations were readily 
obtained for them on liberation. At both, scholastic and religious edu¬ 
cations were imparted with assiduity and success. 

Sir T. Fowell Buxton, of England, said that in that country it was 
seldom possible to reduce the average retention of juvenile delinquents 
to less than twelve or eighteen months. The facilities for “placing out” 
children, as described by Mr. Brace, were not so good in England as in 
America, owing to the greater density of the population. 

Mr. Baker, of England, as one of the pioneer founders of reformatory 
schools, recounted the difficulties that had attended their formation. 
In 1856 Parliament passed laws enabling reformatories to spring up all 


PREVENTIVE AND REFORMATORY WORK. 


165' 


over the country, the result being that in four years the number of com¬ 
mitments of juveniles had been reduced from 14,000 to 8,000. 

Baron von Holtzendorff, of Prussia, said that compulsory education 
was one of the preventive measures adopted in Germany, and that, 
owing to this, such spectacles as met the eye in London were never 
seen in Berlin. Children under twelve were not brought before a mag¬ 
istrate, but punished by the school-master. Between the ages of twelve 
and eighteen, they might be sent to reformatories, which were generally 
under the management of private persons, and where they might be 
detained until they reached the age of twenty. He was of opinion that 
the progressive treatment might be applied to juvenile delinquents. 
The prevailing opinion in Germany was that it was not sufficient merely 
to detain a child to the age of thirteen or fourteen at a public school, 
but that there should be a complementary course to the age of eighteen, 
and that boys and girls who had left school ought to be obliged to 
attend evening lectures twice a week. This was thought desirable be¬ 
cause the period he had mentioned was a very dangerous one. Such a 
complementary, course was believed to be of much importance, and 
some such provision had been already made in Saxony. The subject 
was now occupying the attention of the Prussian government. 

Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, thought education in infancy was the 
best preventive of crime, a predisposition to which he believed was 
sometimes hereditary. Neglected children were not responsible for 
their moral infirmities. To place such children in charitable, Christian 
homes he considered better than sending them to reformatories. Since 
in Switzerland a sufficient number of such families could not be found, 
institutions to the number of seventy or eighty had been established to 
care for these children. They were so organized as to resemble a family 
as much as possible. Not more than 10 or 15 per cent, of the inmates 
turned out badly. The rest became good citizens in after-life, marry¬ 
ing and themselves founding new homes. 

Mr. Wills, of England, had once seen gardens allotted to fifty of the 
best boys in a reformatory having two hundred inmates. The influence 
of this step had been very good. 

Rev. Mr. Orombleholme, of England, thought that the German prac- 
ticeof having the school-master, rather than the magistrate, manage chil¬ 
dren under twelve, as described by Baron von Holtzendorff, was an 
excellent one. He also favored the complemental training mentioned, 
and thought that it was a short-sighted economy to allow considerations 
of expense to influence public action in this connection. 

Mr. Aspinall, of England, while estimating at. its full value the good 
effected through the agency of reformatory, industrial,and public schools, 
and giving to the system of compulsory education its just due, still 
thought that all these measures should be supplemented by efforts to 
improve the homes from which the children came, and to elevate their 
parents. Here, he considered, was a broad field for Christian philan¬ 
thropy. 

Sir Walter Crofton thought the general feeling of the meeting, as his 
own conviction certainly, was in favor of the family system. 

Dr. Marquardseu, of Bavaria, Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, and Rev. 
Mr. Coit, of Massachusetts, in reply to questions of Mrs. Meredith, 
stated the practice in their several countries in regard to the illegiti¬ 
mate children of female prisoners. In Bavaria and Massachusetts they 
become wards of the state, and in Switzerland were taken care of by 
the local authorities. 

Mr. Ford, of England, remarked that it was a singular fact that in 


166 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


England the more criminal institutions—the reformatories—had remained 
stationary ten years; and these were now only sixty-four or sixty-five. 
But the least criminal class of institutions—the industrial schools—had 
more than doubled in number during the same period. In 1861 there 
were forty-one, and fifty had been established since. Thus it appeared 
that the latter were doing away with the necessity for the former. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

PENITENTIARY SYSTEMS. 

§ 1. The Irish convict system , as explained by Sir Walter Crofton .—This 
system first endeavors to make the criminal feel that his punishment is 
not simply afflictive, but also reformatory. To stimulate him in his re¬ 
formation the element of hope is combined with the punitive element, 
and the system of classification shows him that his fate is in his own 
hands. This classification is the result of a system of marks awarded 
for intelligence, work, and zeal. They are not given as a reward for 
mere inteligence, for the most criminal are often intellectually brightest, 
and would thus be most rewarded. The first thing aimed at is to 
give the criminal a likiug for work, for generally idleness .led him to 
crime. But work will give him no pleasure unless he is remunerated for 
it. After a certain time passed in a cell, when strengthened and com¬ 
forted by the visits of the minister, he will live in common with other 
prisoners. During his treatment on the collective system, the change 
effected in his character can be appreciated, and he is rewarded by the 
distribution of marks. He is now arbiter of his own lot, and can only 
get into a higher class by diligence and zeal. Lastly, when he has given 
sufficient guarantees of good conduct, he passes into an intermediate 
prison, which is designed to test the work previously done, as the crucible 
tests gold. These intermediate prisons, in which the prisoners enjoy 
a semi-liberty, have produced excellent results. Those living in 
them conduct themselves as free workmen. Penal labor in all the Irish 
convict-prisons is prohibited. This system has been proved a triumphant 
success. Its reformatory results are most encouraging, a consideration 
more than counter-balancing, even pecuniarily, the slightly increased ex¬ 
pense which it may involve. Time, however, is required for its reform¬ 
ing influences to operate; hence the minimum sentence has been fixed 
at five years. Prisoners who gain a remission of imprisonment receive 
a “ticket of license,liberating them conditionally. Escapes among 
prisoners so liberated are very rare, particularly since the institution of 
police supervision, under which system each holder of a “ ticket of 
license ” is required to report his residence and occupation to the police 
each month. If such a prisoner is again apprehended before the time 
for which he was sentenced has expired, he is sent back to the prison 
from which he was liberated. In reply to a question, Sir Walter stated 
that prisoners, on arriving at the intermediate prison, were treated with 
respect and confidence, and that their conduct elsewhere justified this 
treatment. As an illustration of this proposition, he said that in a cer¬ 
tain prison some one of the prisoners was intrusted each week with the ex¬ 
ecution of errands outside the prison; in seven years only one had returned 
intoxicated. A prisoner who has relapsed after passing through the in¬ 
termediate prison is not allowed to return there again. Life-sentenced 
men, after ten years’ cellular imprisonment with hard labor, are itnpris- 



IRISH, ENGLISH, AND SCOTCH PRISON SYSTEMS. 167 

oned commonly in a special prison, and after twenty years their fate is 
determined by the government. 

§ 2. The Irish borough and county prisons, as explained by Hon. C. 
F. Bourlce and others .—The management of these prisons is confined to 
boards of superintendence, composed each of twelve gentlemen of social 
position and influence in their respective counties, chosen by the. grand 
juries of the counties.- At present there is little uniformity in the dis¬ 
cipline of these prisons, but at the last session of Parliament a bill was 
passed giving to the executive the power to make uniform rules and by¬ 
laws for their management. All prisoners, juvenile and adult, male and 
female, attend the prison schools daily, many of those advanced in life 
learning both to read and write during their imprisonment. A medical 
officer is connected with each jail, who is required to visit each prisoner 
twice a week at least, and oftener if necessary, and who has the right to 
alter the diet or labor of any prisoner according to his judgment. Each 
board of superintendence is empowered to appoint, and usually did 
appoint, three chaplains—one Episcopalian, one Roman Catholic, and 
one Presbyterian. The great difficulty with which the prison managers 
have to contend is the number of short sentences, (very many 
being for only twenty-four hours,) which rather promote crime than 
check it. A majority of these sentences are inflicted on drunkards, who 
are wholly undeterred thereby. It amounts practically merely to giving 
the prisoner a good bed for the night gratuitously, often an unwonted 
luxury, which is, in many cases, enjoyed by the same prisoner at inter¬ 
vals of a week for more than one hundred times. Mr. Bourke thought 
that committing magistrates should be empowered to pass cumulative 
sentences on such prisoners, and that more stringent enactments with 
reference to the sale of ardent spirits should be incorporated in the law. 

§ 3. The English convict system, as explained by Major G. F. Hu Cane .— 
[The greater part of Major Du Cane’s explanation, having been embodied 
in his answers to the interrogatories mentioned in Part First of this report, 
has been epitomized there, and need not be repeated.] 

Major Du Cane defended the ticket-of-license system as practised 
in England. In reply to questions propounded by members of 
the congress, he stated that life-sentenced prisoners were usually 
conditionally liberated by the secretary of state after twenty years’ 
cellar imprisonment. He did not consider the number of recidivists 
any evidence of the value of a prison system. In 1870 more than 2o 
per cent, of those discharged from the English prisons had relapsed 
into crime, which was an increase of a little more than 2 per cent, over 
the preceding year. He said that his ideal would be to see 100 per 
cent, of recidivists, since this would show that it is always the same 
men who commit crime, and that the social pest was really limited and 
localized. Great attention is paid to the industrial training of the con¬ 
victs in the English prisons, 1,600 out of 2,200 apprenticed to some 
mechanical trade having learned it completely. A portion of the prison¬ 
er’s earnings—not exceeding £3—was allowed to him, the sum awarded 
varying according to his industry. The convict, however, was not 
allowed to send any portion of this money to his family; but on his 
discharge it was given to a prisoners’ aid society, if he requested their 
assistance and protection; otherwise, the police were requested to give it 
to him in small sums. Marks are given the prisoners as a reward for 
industry, and if the number earned is sufficient, they are promoted from 
class to class. If any convict feels dissatisfied, he may appeal to the 
governor, and from him to the director, from whose decision an appeal 
lies to the secretary of state. Appeals to the director are frequent; 


168 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


but if the prisoner’s statement of facts is false, he is liable to a disciplin¬ 
ary punishment. 

§ 4. The English borough and county prisons , as explained by Captain 
Armytage , Dr. Mouat , and others.— Captain Armytage, of England, gave 
a detailed account of the Wakefield prison, of which he is the gov¬ 
ernor. The majority of the inmates were sentenced to from three to 
seven days’ imprisonment, many of whom, discharged on Saturday, re¬ 
turned to the prison on the following Monday. The longest term of 
imprisonment in a county jail is two years for one offense. A majority 
of the prisoners were misdemeanants who owed their incarceration to 
intemperance. Penal labor was employed, but seldom except as a pun¬ 
ishment for breaches of discipline. Connected with this prison is the 
industrial home for discharged male prisoners, of which Mr. Browne had 
made mention. The cost per head in this establishment was 7*. 2 d. per 
week. Some of the inmates’ earnings amounted to £1 per week, their 
employment being mat-making, and light work of that sort. There is 
also a female home, in which the women are employed principally in 
washing, and are trained for domestic service, and there is a constant 
demand for them as servants. A well-assorted library is connected with 
the prison, to which the inmates have access. Perfect religious equal¬ 
ity prevails, both Eoman Catholic and Protestant chaplains being em¬ 
ployed. 

Archbishop Manning addressed the congress at length on the subject 
of religious freedom in prisons, pleading that the conscience of Eoman 
Catholic prisoners should be protected equally with that of Protestants. 
He earnestly hoped for the passage by Parliament of an act then before 
the body making the employment of Eoman Catholic chaplains compul¬ 
sory in every county jail. He stated that no salary would be asked for 
if objection were made on the ground of expense. The employment of 
chaplains of his faith was now simply permitted in the county jails, and 
there were one hundred and nine jails where none were employed. He 
wished to see it made everywhere obligatory in this class of prisons as 
it now is in the convict or government prisons. 

The remarks of the archbishop elicited general approval from the 
English members, Dr. Mouat observing that, if there was but one Eoman 
Catholic prisoner in the prison, his receiving religious instruction accord¬ 
ing to his faith ought to be a matter of right, and not of permission. 

§ 5. The Scotch prison system , as explained by Mr. J. Monclure. —There 
is but one general prison in Scotland. No male prisoners are sent here 
for terms longer than three years, those whose sentence exceeds this 
being transferred, after a probationary term of nine months, to public- 
works prisons in England. The system of discipline in the latter prisons 
is identical with that pursued at Perth. The county jails receive pris¬ 
oners sentenced for from twenty-four hours to nine months, although, 
owing to the limited accommodation at Perth, it is sometimes found 
necessary to retain in the county and borough jails prisoners sentenced 
for a longer term, in which case their board is paid by the government. 
Civil and criminal debtors are confined in these jails as well, and are 
allowed greater privileges. The diet varies according to their sentence, 
depending upon its duration, and whether with or without hard labor. 
Corporal punishment is not allowed, except in the case of boys sen¬ 
tenced for petty offenses, and is even then very seldom used. Penal 
labor is employed, which in most cases is made productive. Nowhere 
in Scotland do the earnings of prisoners pay for half their maintenance. 
Gratuities are given to well-conducted and industrious prisoners on their 
discharge. Convicts discharged from the prison at Perth all receive a 


BELGIAN, RUSSIAN, AND FRENCH PRISON SYSTEMS. 169 

gratuity varying from 5s. to £1, according to tlieir conduct and industry. 
To receive the latter sum, a prisoner must have had no demerit marks 
whatever. A portion of the money is given him when he leaves the 
prison. The remainder is paid in fortnightly installments, on his for¬ 
warding a certificate, signed by the police, that he is obtaining an 
honest livelihood. This police supervision works admirably, protecting 
those inclined to do well, and acting as a salutary check on those who 
are disposed to return to vicious courses. The superintendence of all 
the prisons of Scotland is confined to a central board at Edinburgh, 
under the direction of the home secretary. They superintend the col¬ 
lection of judicial and penitentiary statistics. One of their number 
visits the prison at Perth twice a month, sees each prisoner, hears com¬ 
plaints, and inspects the buildings, stores, &c. 

§ 6. The Belgian prison system , as explained by Mr. Stevens. —The cel¬ 
lular system is strictly enforced in nearly all the Belgian prisons. Mr. 
Stevens claimed that it possesses two classes of advantages, positive 
and negative. Among the former he enumerated, with other benefits, 
the opportunity it affords for the separate study and treatment of each 
prisoner, and adapting the discipline to the situation and needs of all 
the prisoners, thus securiug the efficacy of the punishment. He con¬ 
sidered a variation in the treatment of moral disease as necessary 
as in that of physical disease. The cellular system also enables the 
prisoner to preserve the feeling of his dignity as a man and of his 
personal responsibility. The prevention of moral contagion, the sub¬ 
duing and calming influence of solitude, and the opportunity offered 
for reflection and repentance were all, in Mr. Stevens’s opinion, found in 
the cellular system. In a word, he considered that no system attained, 
more directly or perfectly the various objects of punishment—repres¬ 
sion, expiation, prevention, and reformation. As the prisoner’s reform 
progresses, cellular confinement becomes less and less irksome to him, 
until at last he would regard removal to a congregate prison as an in¬ 
tolerable punishment. In consequence of its repressive and reformatory 
efficacy, this system, Mr. Stevens claimed, allowed a diminution of the 
duration of imprisonment, thus greatly lessening expense. A want of 
sufficient cellular accommodation alone has prevented the introduction 
of this system into all the Belgian prisons, and this obstacle is being re¬ 
moved as rapidly as possible. Its results in that country have abun¬ 
dantly justified its adoption. The official returns prove that the average 
number of recidivists is 4.40 per cent, of those leaving cellular prisons, 
while it is 68.S0 per cent, of those liberated from congregate prisons. 
Lastly, Mr. Stevens stated the remarkable fact that in Belgium the 
number of prisoners has decreased during the last six years from 7,000 
to 4,000, a result which he attributed in part to the introduction of the 
cellular system. 

§ 7. The Russian prison system , projected but not yet reduced to practice , 
as described by Count Sollohub. —Count Sollohub explained a complete 
system of penitentiary treatment, full of novel views and original ideas. 
Want of time prevented him from finishing his explanation, but he sub¬ 
mitted a pamphlet on the subject, which was distributed to the members 
of the congress. This has been translated and printed, as the reader 
will have observed, in Chapter XIV, Part First, of this report. 

§ 8. The French prison system , as explained by Mr. Berenger. —Great 
interest is taken at present in France in the subject of prison reform, 
and the Xational Assembly has appointed a commission to inquire into 
the condition of French prisons and suggest improvements. This com¬ 
mission deputized Mr. Berenger to attend the congress. He said that 


170 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the system now followed presented three prominent characteristics: 
first, young criminals are imprisoned in reformatories; secondly, help 
is given to the man who commits a first crime; and, thirdly, an attempt 
is made to get rid of recidivists. It is in effecting the object last named 
that the greatest difficulty is apprehended. 

Being interrogated as to the state of public opinion in France as re¬ 
gards the cellular system, Mr. Berenger said he believed it was not un¬ 
popular. He avowed himself an advocate of that system. 

§ 9. The Sieiss prison system , as explained by Dr. Guillaume .—After vari¬ 
ous experiments, public opinion in Switzerland has become definitively 
settled in favor of the Crofton system. The details of its application 
are contained in Part First, and will be further illustrated in Part Fourth. 

§ 10. The Italian prison system , as explained by Count de Foresta .— 
There is at present no well-defined and uniform prison system in Italy. 
A commission, however, has been appointed by the King to prepare a 
code that shall attain this end. Of this commission both the Count de 
Foresta and Mr. Beltrani-Scalia were members. The preference of both 
these gentlemen was for the Crofton, or Irish, system; but this sentiment 
was not unanimous among the commission, which has not as yet come 
to any resolution. The count felt quite certain, however, that the cel¬ 
lular system would not be adopted, since it was believed to be ill-adapted 
to Italian character. At present prisoners were generally imprisoned 
collectively in galleys, ( baynes ;) they are chained; but those who dis¬ 
tinguish themselves by good conduct are placed in agricultural colonies 
on the islands. 

§ 11. The German prison system as explained by Herr Ekert and Dr. 
Yarrentrap .—Herr Ekert, director of the cellular prison of Bruchsal, in 
Baden, summarized the provisons of the German penal code. Corporal 
punishment is abolished, cellular imprisonment and conditional libera¬ 
tion established, and police surveillance humanely conducted but firmly 
maintained. Separate imprisonment in Germany, when applied to 
women as well as to men, produced excellent results. Formerly in 
Baden the maximum duration of cellular imprisonment was ten years; 
the new German penal code has fixed it at only three years. Herr 
Ekert avowed himself an earnest supporter of the cellular system and 
concurred in all the conclusions of Mr. Stevens. In his own prison he 
has seen convicts live thirteen years in separate confinement without 
any inconvenience. He alleged that recidivists were very rare among 
those who had undergone this punishment for many years, and fur¬ 
nished results tending to show that its influence on the moral and 
physical health of the prisoners was very beneficial. In reply to inter¬ 
rogatories Mr. Ekert said that there were no criminal statistics in Ger¬ 
many. He added that all prisoners except 1 per cent, could endure 
cellular confinement for life without inconvenience. 

Baron von Holtzendorff congratulated Herr Ekert on the results ob¬ 
tained at Bruchsal, but added immediately that, notwithstanding these 
results, he himself did not approve of that system; that the public 
opinion of Germany was opposed to it, and that an executive committee 
sitting at Berlin, under one of the city magistrates as president, had 
unanimously decided to apply the cellular treatment in cases of short 
imprisonment, and the progressive system of Sir Walter Crofton when 
longer sentences had to be undergone. 

Hr. Yarrentrapp, of Frankfort, vigorously contested the statement 
that public opinion in Germany had pronounced against the cellular 
system. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, at Frankfort, in Wiirtemberg, 
Hanover, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and Bavaria, it had been adopted, 


DUTCH, SWEDISH, AUSTRIAN, AND OTHER SYSTEMS. 171 

and it was only on financial grounds that it was not more completely 
applied. Bavaria had, however, already built a magnificent cellular 
prison, which had produced excellent results. Dr. Varrentrapp consid¬ 
ered that the new German penal code prefers and adopts the cellular 
system. His own preference therefor was, he said, supported by the 
experience and study of forty years; and he combated the attacks 
made against this system, which appeared to him to have a most 
ratioual basis. 

§ 12. The Netherlands prison system , as explained by Mr. Ploos van 
Amstel. —In Holland the Belgian, or cellular, system is to a very con¬ 
siderable extent in operation, the maximum of separate confinement 
being two years. The prisoners are employed in a variety of industries, 
and gratuities are allowed for diligence. As a magistrate and inspec¬ 
tor, he had, for many-years, visited the prisoners in the cellular 
prison of Amsterdam, and always found their health excellent, better 
even than he found it in collective prisons. He never observed bad 
results, either as respects their moral or physical condition. For this 
reason he supported the opinions of M. Stevens. 

§ 13. The Swedish prison system , asexplainedby M. Almquist. —M. Alm¬ 
quist said that in Sweden serious attention was given to penitentiary re¬ 
form. Sweden in this respect had still much to accomplish and much to learn 
from other countries. The cellular system is there in operation, and has 
not been followed by the evil results attributed to it by its adversaries. 
The prisoners enjoy better health in the cellular than in the collective 
prisons, while the cases of insanity are also fewer in the former prisons. 

§ 14. The Austrian prison system , as explained by Dr. Frey. —Dr. Frey 
stated that up to the present time in Austria the collective system, pure 
and simple, had been practised, without classification or separation of 
any kind. At first they had thought of introducing the cellular system 
as practised in Belgium, but, fearing it would interfere with the health 
of the prisoners, preference had been given to the progressive system. 
A maximum duration of three years’ cellular imprisonment is followed 
by life in common and by classes more or less privileged. Conditional 
liberation has not yet been introduced. 

§ 15. Prison system of India , as explained by Dr. Mouat and others .— 
A synopsis of the paper read by Dr. Mouat on the Indian prison system 
has been already given in Part First, Chapter XYI. Mr. Thornton and Dr. 
Grey, of India, supplemented the account furnished by Dr. Mouat by 
giving some interesting statistical details relative to the prisons of the 
Punjaub. In other respects, however, their statements shed no new 
light upon the internal operation of the system, beyond the lucid de¬ 
scription of Dr. Mouat. 

§ 16. The prison system of the United States , as explained by Eon. Joseph 
R. Chandler , General Pilsbury, and others. —The representatives from 
New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Maine present in the congress 
described each the prisons of his own State. It was remarked that, owing 
to the independence of the several States of the Union of each other, a 
uniform system throughout the country was impossible. The eastern 
penitentiary of Pennsylvania is the only prison in the United States con¬ 
ducted on the cellular plan. Its managers are abundantly satisfied of 
the superiority of this system over that of congregate labor. General 
Pilsbury and Dr. Wines deplored the influence of party politics upon the 
state-prisons of New York, and expressed a belief that a radical change 
in the fundamental law of the State would soon render a recurrence of 
the present evils impossible. A brief outline was also given of the plan 
upon which it is proposed to construct and manage a new State adult 


172 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


reformatory at Elmira. To this prison are to be .sent young men between 
the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. There would be, so to speak, three 
prisons under one roof, and the prisoners would have to begin at one 
and would be advanced to the others, as they earned such promotion by 
good conduct. The system would be that of Sir Walter Crofton, slightly 
modified. 

The county jails throughout the country were represented, with few 
exceptions, as iudequate, in every way, for the work required of them. 
This fact was freely admitted by a majority of the American delegates, 
many of whom, however, expressed a hope soon to see radical reforms 
instituted in their own States. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

CONCLUDING SESSION OF THE CONGRESS. 

§ 1. Presentation of the works of Edward Livingston on criminal ju¬ 
risprudence. —Dr. Wines offered to the acceptance of the congress a set 
of the complete works of Edward Livingston, in two volumes, pub¬ 
lished in America fifty years ago. He also presented, at the same time, 
for M. Verge, a member of the Institute of France, an edition of the 
same work in French, recently published under the auspices of the In¬ 
stitute. He stated that, through funds generously proffered for the 
purpose, the National Prison Association of the United States had 
then in press, and would shortly issue, a new American edition of Liv¬ 
ingston. It was, he said, a remarkable as well as pleasing circumstance 
that there should meet on that floor, and be presented to the congress, 
French and American editions of a work which, though written and 
published a full half century ago, had anticipated most of the great 
reforms in prison discipline which the world is now slowly and labori¬ 
ously engaged in working out. M. Verge had been called to Paris that 
morning by duties which could not be postponed, but had handed to him, 
together with the book, a letter addressed to the president of the con¬ 
gress, which would be read in French, and afterward translated into 
English by Musurus Bey, a delegate to the congress commissioned by 
the Sublime Porte. The letter was then read as follows : 

London, July 12, 1872. 

Mr. President : I have the honor to ask you to offer to the International Congress 
on Prisou Reform a copy of the French edition of the great work of Livingston, one of 
the most eminent men of the United States of America, and among the most zealous 
pioneers in the reform of the penal and penitentiary sj^stem. This edition is preceded 
by a biographical sketch of Mr. Livingston by M. Mignet, and a critical essay by M. 
Charles Lucas, a member of the Institute of France, the friend and successor of Living¬ 
ston in his labors in behalf of penitentiary reform, undertaken half a century ago. 
Livingston was a member of the Institute of France, (Academy of Moral and Political 
Sciences.) He has found in the Old World as well as the New admirers and followers. 
Receive, Mr. President, the assurance of my most distinguished sentiments. 

CHARLES VERGfi. 

Member of the Institute. 

Archbishop Manning, who had intended to offer some remarks on the 
work thus presented to the congress, but forbore to do so lest he should 
occupy time that might be needed for other purposes, subsequently ad¬ 
dressed the following letter to Dr. Wines : 

8 York Place, July 21, 1872. 

My Dear Sir: Our thanks are due to you in chief for the International Prison 
Congress, which has resulted not only in much valuable information, but in the estab- 



Livingston’s works and lucas’s observations. 173 


Bailment of a permanent union of correspondence iu respect to the statistics and dis¬ 
cipline of prisons. But for the initiative taken by you aud by the Government of the 
United States, I do not think this would have been attained. We have also to thank 
you for Mr. Livingston’s valuable work ou reform and prison discipline. I am sorry 
that it did not arrive earlier in our proceedings. Mr. Livingston was before his time. 
He has anticipated the substance of our late discussions on the separate system in his 
words, “ Imprisonment with seclusion and labor will diminish offenses ; imprisonment 
without seclusion will increase them.” I was not aware that this had been tried and 
proved so long ago as 1791 iu the United States. His book is worthy of his high name as 
a just and good man. I am sorry that I had not the opportunity of expressing what I 
think is due to Mr. Livingston as a forerunner in the recent amelioration of our prison- 
discipline, which is, day by day, becoming vital to the welfare and even to the safety 
of the civil society of the world. 

Believe me, my dear sir, yours, very faithfully, 

t HENRY E., 
Archbishop of Westminster. 

The Rev. Dr. W inks. 

§ 2. Presentation to the congress of M. Charles Lucas’s observations on 
the Penitentiary Congress of London. —In making this presentation to tlie 
congress, Dr. Wines said that, as the observations of M. Lucas were 
addressed to the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and 
would not therefore be embodied in the proceedings of the congress, 
and as they lacked nothing of the value that would naturally attach to 
them from the longe study, large experience, and eminent ability of the 
writer, he would ask the indulgence of that body in offering a brief 
resume of the important paper submitted by him. He said: 

M. Lucas remarks that such reuuions as the congress of London are a necessary con¬ 
sequence of the two laws of the sociability and perfectibility of man, which, in an ad¬ 
vanced civilization, require the international exchange of ideas for the moral progress 
of humanity just as they do that of material commodities for the increase of national 
wealth. International congresses show the respective conditions of nations as regards 
their intellectual aud moral development in the same manner as international indus¬ 
trial exhibitions do the comparative results of their economic development. Hereto¬ 
fore there have been congresses of governments and congresses of peoples, but the Con¬ 
gress of London is original and unique in that it combines both these elements. After 
a rapid glance at the work of organizing the congress, M. Lucas proceeds to offer some 
general considerations in relation to the subject. He says that Beccaria and Howard 
were, and ought to have beeu, philanthropists, for that character was demanded of 
them by the cruelties of both the criminal law and the criminal administration of their 
age. But the times have happily changed since then, and with them ideas and usages 
as well. Man, in the state of penal servitude, is no longer a thing, but a moral being, 
whose liberty human justice has not the right to confiscate absolutely aud irrevocably, 
but only within the limits required by the protection and security of social order. The 
logical sequence of this view is that it is the duty of society to reform the criminal 
during his temporary privation of liberty, since iu this way only can the peril of his 
relapse be successfully combated, and the public safety effectually maintained. The 
reformation of imprisoned criminals is not, therefore, in our day, a work of philanthropy, 
but an obligation of the state. 

M. Lucas claims that the discipline of the Catholic Church furnished the model for 
both the cellular and associated systems of imprisonment, since known as those of 
Pennsylvania and Auburn, save that the Auburn system added corporal chastisements 
to the discipline of silence, and the Pennsylvania system subtracted worship iu com¬ 
mon, to the detriment of religion, and associated exercise at the expense of humanity. 
M. Lucas recalls to the memory of the academydhe discussion of the 10th, 17th, and 
24th of February, 1844, in which, single-handed, he contended against the three ablest 
supporters of the Pennsylvania system in France—Messrs. Berenger, de Tocqueville, 
and de Beaumont. It was not that he was absolutely opposed to isolation by day and 
night, since in his “ Theory of Imprisonment,” published in 1836, he was the first to 
propose the application of the cellular system to prisoners awaiting trial; and, in the 
sphere of imprisonment after sentence, he would not Avliolly exclude the use of the 
system, but would restrict its duration to one year. It was at the point of departure 
from this limit that the controversy began between M. Lucas and his distinguished 
associates, they contending for an unlimited aud he for a restricted application of the 
cellular system. The inadmissibility of isolation in long imprisonments he grounds 
on the following considerations: Man is born sociable and perfectible, and it is by 
the action of his sociability that his perfection is secured. Isolation is, therefore, a de- 


174 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


nial of the necessary process for bis perfection ; it is a violence done to bis nature 
which cannot be safely prolonged for any great length of time. Experience must in¬ 
fallibly confirm this philosophical demonstration, since the education of any being 
'whatsoever is but the development of his nature. Penitentiary education must act 
with the certainty of enlightening and invigorating the intelligence of the convict, 
and not by exposing him to the peril of weakening and even of destroying that essential 
instrument of his regeneration. Cellular isolation, in effect, does not permit either the 
initiative, the effort, or the probation, without which there can be neither morality 
nor moral reformation, ( ni moralite ni moralisation .) 

M. Lucas discusses in his pamphlet the proper number of prisoners to be admitted 
into any one penitentiary establishment, and arrives at the conclusion that four hun¬ 
dred is the maximum that can be treated effectively for their reformation. He grounds 
this belief on the consideration that only a moderate number of prisoners will permit 
that serious personal influence which, in order to their reformation, must be exercised 
upon them by the director and his co-laborers. He adds that, during his long admin¬ 
istrative career as inspector of French prisons, he never ceased, but always in vain, to 
cry out against the agglomeration in the central prisons as creating an impossibility 
of penitentiary reform, and asks whether any one can suppose that, in those immense 
barracks of ten, twelve, fifteen hundred prisoners, the director can know them other¬ 
wise than by their numbers? Where is the use, he says, of talking of penitentiary re¬ 
form when it is rendered impossible by such numbers of prisoners congregated in the 
same prison ? In short, M. Lucas finds the following to be the essential conditions of 
a reformatory prison discipline, namely: isolation at night, the rule of silence during 
the day, a maximum of four hundred prisoners in any one establishment, anil pro¬ 
gressive classification. 

§ 3. Propositions submitted to the congress by the American delegation .— 
This series of propositions was offered some days previous to the final 
session, but is introduced at this point because it formed the basis, as 
will be seen under the next section, of the declaration of principles em¬ 
bodied in the final report of the executive committee and approved by 
unanimous vote of the congress. The propositions are as follows: 

1. The treatment of criminals by society is for the protection of society. But, since 
such treatment is directed rather to the criminal than to the crime, its great object 
should be his moral regeneration. Hence it should be made a primary aim of prison 
discipline to reform the criminal, and not simply to inflict upon him a certain amount 
of vindictive suffering. The best guarantee of the public security against a repetition 
of his crime is the re-establishment of moral harmony in the soul of the criminal him¬ 
self—his new birth to a respect for the laws. 

2. In the moral regeneration of the criminal, hope is a more powerful agent than 
fear; it should therefore be made an ever-present force in the minds of prisoners by a 
well-devised and skillfully-applied system of rewards for good conduct, industry, and 
attention to learning. Such rewards may be a diminution of sentence, a participa¬ 
tion in earnings, a gradual withdrawal of restraint, and a constaut enlargement of 
privilege, as these shall be severally earned by meritorious conduct. Rewards more 
than punishments are essential to every good penitentiary system. 

3. The progressive classification of prisoners based on merit, and not on any mere arbi¬ 
trary principle—as crime, age, &c.—should be established in all prisons designed for the 
treatment of convicted criminals. In this way the prisoner’s destiny during his incar¬ 
ceration should be placed, measurably, in his own hands ; he must be put into circum¬ 
stances where he will be able, through his own exertions, to continually better his 
condition. A regulated self-interest must be brought into play. In the prison, as in 
free society, there must be the stimulus of some personal advantage accruing from the 
prisoner’s efforts. Giving prisoners an interest in their industry and good conduct 
tends to give them beneficial thoughts and habits, and what no severity of punish¬ 
ment will enforce a moderate personal interest will readily obtain. 

4. In criminal treatment moral forces should be relied on with as little admixture of 
physical force as may be; organized persuasion, to the utmost extent possible, should 
be made to take the place of coercive restraint, the object being to make upright and 
industrious freemen , rather than orderly and obedient prisoners. Brute force may 
make good prisoners ; moral training alone will make good citizens. To the latter of 
these ends the living soul must be won; to the former only the inert and obedient 
body. To compass the reformation of criminals, the military type in prison manage¬ 
ment must be abandoned, and a discipline by moral forces substituted in its place. 
The objects of military discipline and prison discipline, being directly opposed to each 
other, cannot be pursued by the same road. The one is meant to train men to act 
together, the other to prepare them to act separately. The one relies upon force, 
which never yet created virtue; the other on motives, which are the sole agency for 
attaining moral ends. The special object of the one is to suppress individual charac- 


PROPOSITIONS OF AMERICAN DELEGATION. 


175 


ter and reduce all to component parts of a compact machine; that of the other is 
to develop and strengthen individual character, and by instilling right principles to 
encourage and enable it to act on these independently. 

5. Nevertheless, unsuitable indulgence is as pernicious as unsuitable severity, the 
true principle being to place the prisoner in a position of stern adversity, from which 
he must work his way out by his own exertions—that is, by diligent labor and a con¬ 
stant course of voluntary self-command and self-denial. As a rule,reformation can be 
attained only through a stern and severe training. It is in a benevolent adversity, 
whether in the freedom of ordinary life or the servitude of the prison, that all the 
manly virtues are born and nurtured. It is easy enough for a bad man to put up with 
a little more degradation, a little more contumely, a few more blows or harsh restric¬ 
tions ; but to set his shoulder to the wheel, to command his temper, his appetites, his 
self-indulgent propensities, to struggle steadily out of his position—and all volun¬ 
tarily, all from an inward impulse, stimulated by a moral necessity—this is a harder 
task, a far heavier imposition. Yet it isjust this training that a right prison discipline 
must exact, and only through such training that it can succeed. 

G. It is essential to a reformatory prison treatment that the self-respect of the pris¬ 
oner should be cultivated to the utmost, and that every effort be made to give back to 
him his manhood. Hence, all disciplinary punishments that inflict unnecessary pain 
or humiliation should be abolished as of evil influence; and, instead, the penalty of 
prison offenses should be the forfeiture of some privilege, or of a part of the progress 
already made toward liberation, with or without diminished food, or a period of 
stricter confinement. There is no greater mistake in the whole compass of penal dis¬ 
cipline than its studied imposition of degradation as a part of punishment. Such 
imposition destroys every better impulse and aspiration. It crushes the weak, irri¬ 
tates the stroug, and indisposes all to submission and reform. It is trampling where 
we ought to raise, and is, therefore, as unchristian in principle as it is unwise in policy. 
On the other hand, no imposition would be so improving, none so favorable to the cul¬ 
tivation of the prisoner’s self-respect, self-command, and recovery of manhood, as the 
making of every deviation from the line of right bear on present privilege or ultimate 
release. Such punishments would be as the drop of water, that wears away the 
granite rock, and would, without needless pain or wanton cruelty, and especially with¬ 
out further injury to their manhood, subdue at length even the most refractory. 

7. A system of prison discipline, to be truly reformatory, must gain the will of the 
convict. He is to he amended, but this is impossible with his mind in a state of hos¬ 
tility. No system can hope to succeed which does not secure this harmony of wills, so 
that the prisoner shall choose for himself what his officer chooses for him. But to this 
end the officer must really choose the good of the prisoner, and the prisoner must 
remain in his choice long enough for virtue to become a habit. This consent of wills 
is an essential condition of reformation, for a bad man can never be made good against 
his consent. Nowhere can reformation become the rule instead of the exception, where 
this choice of the same things by prison keepers and prison inmates has not been at¬ 
tained. 

8. No prison can become a school of reform till there is, on the part of the officers, a 
hearty desire and intention to accomplish this object. Where there is no prevalent 
aim to this effect, there can be no general results in this direction. Such a purpose, 
however, universally entertained by prison officers, would revolutionize prison disci¬ 
pline by changing its whole spirit; and fit reformatory processes would follow such 
change as naturally as the harvest follows the sowing. It is not so much any specific 
apparatus that is needed, as it is the introduction of a really benevolent spirit into our 
prison management. Once let it become the heartfelt desire and purpose of prison- 
officers to reform the criminals under their care, and they will speedily become invent¬ 
ive of the methods adapted to the work. 

9. In order to the reformation of imprisoned criminals, tliore must also be iu the 
minds of prison officers a serious conviction that they are capable of being reformed, 
since no man can heartily pursue an object at war with his inward beliefs; no man 
can earnestly strive to accomplish what in his heart he despairs of accomplishing. 
Doubt is the prelude of failure ; confidence a guarantee of success. Nothing so weakens 
moral forces as unbelief; nothing imparts to them such vigor as faith. “Be it unto 
thee according to thy faith,” is the statement of a fundamental principle of success in 
all human enterprises, especially when our work lies within the realm of mind and 
morals. 

10. The task of changing bad men into good ones is not one to be confided to the 
first-comers. It is a serious charge, demanding thorough preparation, entire self-devo¬ 
tion, a calm and cautious judgment, great firmness of purpose and steadiness of action, 
a keen insight into the springs of human conduct, large experience, a true sympathy, 
and morality above suspicion. Prison officers, therefore, need a special education for 
their work, as men do for the other great callings of society. Prison administration 
should be raised to the dignity of a profession. Prison officers should be organized in 
a gradation of rank, responsibility, and emolument; so that persons entering the 


17G 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


prison service in early life, and forming a class or profession by themselves, may be 
thoroughly trained in all their duties, serving in successive positions till, according to 
their merits, tested chiefly by the small proportion of re-convictions, they reach the 
position of governors of the largest prisons. Thus alone can the multiplied details ot 
prison discipline be perfected, and uniformity in its application be attained. For only 
when the administration of public punishment is made a profession will it become 
scientific, itniform, and successful in the highest degree. 

11. Work, education, and religion (including in this latter moral instruction) are the 
three great forces to be employed in the reformation of criminals, (a) Industrial train¬ 
ing should have a broader and higher development in prisons than is now commonly 
the case. Work is no less an auxiliary to virtue than it is a means of support. Steady, 
active, useful labor is the basis of all reformatory discipline. ( b ) Education is a vital 
force in the reformation of the fallen. Its tendency is to quicken thought, inspire self- 
respect, incite to higher aims, open new fields of exertion, and supply a healthful sub¬ 
stitute for low and vicious amusements, (c) Of all reformatory agencies, religion is 
first in importance, because most powerful in its action upon the human heart and life. 
In vain are all devices of coercion and repression, if the heart and conscience, which 
are beyond all power of external control, are left untouched. 

12. Individualization is an essential principle of a reformatory prison discipline. To 
insure their highest improvement prisoners must, to a certain extent, be treated per¬ 
sonally. While they are all placed under a general law, the conduct of each should be 
specially noted. The improving effect of such a verification, to each, of his progress 
in virtue would be great. It would be a first step toward restoring to him that feel¬ 
ing of self-respect, without which no recovery will ever be found permanent. Each 
should be enabled to know the light in which his conduct is viewed by those placed 
over him ; for thus alone, as his good resolutions strengthen, will he be enabled to cor¬ 
rect that wherein he may be found deficient. The statement of this principle affords an 
indication as to the maximum number of prisoners proper to be detained in a peniten¬ 
tiary establishment; but it by no means settles that question; nor indeed can such 
definite and positive settlement ever be arrived at, since the question is one which must 
necessarily be left to the judgment and convenience of each individual state or com¬ 
munity. 

13. Repeated short sentences are believed to be worse that useless, their tendency 
being rather to stimulate than to repress transgression in petty offenders. The object 
here is less to punish than to save. But reformation is a work of time; and a benev¬ 
olent regard to the criminal himself, as well as the protection of society, requires that 
his sentence be long enough for reformatory processes to take effect. It is the judgment 
of this congress that every penal detention should have in view, above all, the time of 
the prisoner’s liberation, and that the entire discipline of a prison should he organized 
mainly with a view to prevent relapses. If by a short and sharp first imprisonment it 
is important to give an energetic notice so as to prevent the propagation of evil, it is 
no less important afterward, by means of sentences of a longer duration, to prepare, 
in a manner more sustained and efficacious, the habitual petty transgressor for his re¬ 
entrance into society as a reformed, industrious, and useful citizen. 

14. Preventive agencies, such as general education, truant-homes, industrial schools, 
children’s aid societies, orphan-asylums, and the like, designed for children not yet 
criminal, but in danger of becoming so, constitute the true field of promise, in which to 
labor for the prevention and diminution of crime. Here the brood may be killed in 
the egg, the stream cut off in the fountain ; and whatever the cost of such agencies 
may be, it will be less than the spoliations resulting from neglect, and the expense in¬ 
volved in arrests, trials, and imprisonments. 

15. The successful prosecution of crime requires the combined action of capital and 
labor, just as other crafts do. There are two well-defined classes engaged in criminal 
operations, who may be called the capitalists of crime and its operatives. It is worthy 
of inquiry whether society has not made a mistake in its warfare upon crime, and 
whether it would not be better and more effective to strike at the few capitalists as a 
class than at the many operative plunderers one by one. Let it direct its blows against 
the connection between criminal capital and criminal labor, nor forbear its assaults till 
it has wholly broken and dissolved that union. We may rest assured that vrlien this 
baleful combination shall be pierced in its vital part, it will perish; that when the 
corner-stone of the leprous fabric shall be removed, the building itself will tumble into 
ruins. 

1G. More systematic and comprehensive methods should be adopted to save discharged 
prisoners by providing them with work and encouraging them to redeem their character 
and regain their lost position in society. The state has not discharged its whole duty to 
the criminal when it has punished him, nor even when it has reformed him. Having- 
lifted him up, it has the further duty to aid in holding him up. In vain shall we have 
given the convict an improved mind and heart, in vain shall we have imparted to him 
the capacity for industrial labor and the will to advance himself by worthy means, if, 
on his discharge, he finds the world in arms against him, with none to trust him, none 
to meet him kindly, none to give him the opportunity of earning honest bread. 


PROPOSITIONS ADOPTED BY THE CONGRESS. 


177 


17. Since personal liberty is a right as respectable as the right of property, it is the 
duty of society to indemnify the citizen who has been unjustly imprisoned, on proof of 
his innocence, whether at the time of his trial or after his sentence, as it indemnities 
the citizen from whom it lias taken his field or his house for some public use. 

18. It is the conviction of this congress that one of the most effective agencies in 
the repression of crime would be the enactment of laws for the education of all the 
children of the state. Better to force education upon the people than to force them 
into prison to expiate crimes of which the neglect of education and consequent ignor¬ 
ance have beeu the occasion, if not the cause. 

It). This congress defends as just and reasonable the principle of the responsibility 
of parents for the full or partial support of their children iu reformatory institutions. 
The expense of such maintenance must fall on somebody, and on whom can it fall more 
fitly tlian on the child’s parent, whose neglect or vices have probably been the occa¬ 
sion of its lapse into crime ? 

20. This congress arraigns society itself as in no slight degree accountable for the 
invasion of its rights and the warfare upon its interests practised by the criminal 
classes. Does society take all the steps which it easily might to change the circum¬ 
stances in our social state that lead to crime, or, when crime has been committed, to 
cure the proclivity to it generated by these circumstances? It cannot be pretended. 
Let society, then, lay the case earnestly to its conscience, and strive to amend iu both 
directions. Offenses, we are told by a high authority, must come, but a special woe is 
denounced against those through whom they come. Let states and communities take 
heed that that woe fall not upon their head. 

21. The systems of criminal statistics stand in urgent need of revision and amend¬ 
ment. The congress judges it expedient and desirable that greater uniformity should 
be secured in making up the statistics in this department of the public service in dif¬ 
ferent countries, to the end that comparisons may be the more readily made, that con¬ 
clusions may be the more accurately drawn, and that criminal legislation may with 
greater safety be based upon the conclusions so reached. 

22. Prison architecture is a matter of grave importance. Prisons of every class should 
be substantial structures, affording gratification by their design and material to a pure 
taste, but not costly or highly ornate. The chief points to be aimed at iu prison con¬ 
struction are security, perfect ventilation, an unfailing supply of pure water, the best 
facilities for industrial labor, convenience of markets, ease of supervision, adaptation 
to reformatory aims, and a rigid, though not parsimonious, economy. 

2d. A right application of the principles of sanitary science in the construction and 
arrangement of prisons is a point of vital moment. The apparatus for heating and 
ventilation should be the best that is known; sunlight, air, and water should be afforded 
according to the abundance with which nature has provided them; the dietary and 
clothing should be plain but wholesome, comfortable, and in sufficient, but not extrav¬ 
agant, quantity; the bedsteads, beds, and beddings not costly, but decent, well-aired, 
and free from vermin ; the hospital accommodations, medical stores, and surgical in¬ 
struments should be all that humanity requires or science can supply; and all needed 
means for personal cleanliness should be without stint. 

24. As a principle that crowns all and is essential to all, it is our conviction that no prison 
system can be perfect, or successful to the most desirable extent, without some cen- 
t ral and supreme authority to sit at the helm, guiding, controlling, unifying, and vitaliz¬ 
ing the whole. All the departments of the preventive, reformatory, and penal institu¬ 
tions of a state should be molded into one homogeneous and effective system, its parts 
mutually answering to and supporting one another, and the whole animated by the 
same spirit, aiming at the same objects, and subject to the same control, yet without 
loss of the advantages of concurring local organizations and of voluntary aid, wherever 
such aid is attainable and may be judiciously aud wisely admitted. 

25. This congress is of the opinion that, both in the official administration of such 
a system and in the voluntary co-operation of citizens therein, the agency of women 
may be employed with good effect. 

§ 4. Propositions embodied in the final report of the executive committee , 
and adopted by the congress as expressing its concept ion of the fundamental 
principles of prison discipline .—The committee, after briefly reciting the 
history of the congress and setting forth the work done by it during its 
ten days’ sessions, thus epitomizes the longer paper ot the American 
delegation, and submits to the congress what in our country would be 
called the draught of its platform : 

Recognizing as a fundamental fact that the protection of society is the object for 
which penal codes exist and the treatment of criminals is devised, the committee 
believes that this protection is not only consistent with, but absolutely demands, the 
enunciation, of the principle that the moral regeneration of the prisoner should be a 

II. Ex. 185-12 



178 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


primary aim of prison discipline. To attain this aim, hope must always be a more 
powerful agent than fear; and hope should therefore be constantly sustained in the 
minds of prisoners by a system of rewards for good conduct and industry, whether in 
the shape of a diminution of sentence, a participation in earnings, a gradual with¬ 
drawal of restraint, or an enlargement of privilege. A progressive classification of 
prisoners should, in the opinion of the committee, be adopted in all prisons. 

In the treatment of criminals, all disciplinary punishments that inflict unnecessary 
pain or humiliation should be abolished, and the penalties for prison offenses should, 
so far as possible, be the diminution of ordinary comforts, the forfeiture of some priv¬ 
ilege, or of a part of the progress made toward liberation. Moral forces and motives 
should, in fact, be relied on, so far as is consistent with the due maintenance of dis¬ 
cipline ; and physical force should be employed only in the last extremity. But in 
saying tiiis, the committee is not advocating unsuitable indulgence, which it believes 
to be as pernicious as undue severity. The true principle is to place the prisoner— 
who must lie taught that he has sinned against society and owes reparation—in a 
position of stern adversity, from which he must work his way out by his own ex¬ 
ertions. To impel a prisoner to this self-exertion should be the aim of a system of 
prison discipline, which can never be truly reformatory unless it succeeds in gaining 
the will of the convict. Prisoners do not cease to be men when they enter the prison- 
walls, and they are still swayed by human motives and interests. They must, there¬ 
fore, be dealt with as men—that is, as beings who possess moral and spiritual impulses 
as well as bodily wants. » 

Of all reformatory agencies religion is first in importance, because it is the most 
powerful iu its action upon the human heart and life. Education has also a vital 
effect on moral improvement, and should constitute an integral part of any prison 
system. Steady, active, and useful labor is the basis of a sound discipline, and at once 
the means and test of reformation. Work, education, and religion are consequently 
the three great forces on which prison administrators should rely. But to carry out 
these principles individualization becomes essential ; prisoners, like other men, must 
be treated personally, and with a view to the peculiar circumstances and mental or¬ 
ganization of each. The committee need not say that to carry out such views prison 
officers are required w ho believe in the capacity of prisoners for reformation and enter 
heartily into that work. They should, as far as possible, receive a special training for 
their dut ies, and should be organized in such a gradation of rank, responsibility, and 
emolument as may retain experience and efficiency in the service, and lead to the pro¬ 
motion of the most deserving. 

But if a sound system of prison discipline be desirable, it is no less expedient that 
the prisoner on his discharge should be systematically aided to obtain employment, and 
to return permanently to the ranks of honest and productive industry. For this pur¬ 
pose a more comprehensive system than has yet been brought to bear seems to be 
desirable. 

Nor can the committee omit to say that it is in the field of preventive agencies, such 
as general education, the establishment of industrial and ragged schools, and of other 
institutions designed to save children not yet criminal, but in danger of becoming so, 
that the battle against crime is in a great degree to be won. In this, as in the general 
question of the reclamation of the guilty and erring, the influence of women devoted to 
such work is of the highest importance; and the committee rejoices that this congress 
has had the advantage of the presence and counsel of many ladies, whose practical ac¬ 
quaintance with prisons and reformatories has given weight to their words, and whose 
example furnishes hope for the future. 

Lastly, the committee is convinced that the systems of criminal statistics now in 
force stand in urgent need of revision. Greater uniformity should be secured, and 
means taken to insure a higher standard of accuracy and trustworthiness in this branch 
of the statistics of different countries. 

Mr. Hastings, of England, moved the adoption of the report, and in 
doing so expressed the hope that in any international scheme of prison 
statistics which might be devised, special care would be taken to insure 
the trustworthiness of the facts reported. At present, he said, such sta¬ 
tistics are, in a great measure, delusive, because no guide is afforded by 
them as to the circumstances under which they were taken. Major Du 
Cane lias pointed out that the number of reconvictions was but an imper¬ 
fect test of any system. The question was, not what was the number of 
reconvictions, but under what circumstances did they take place ? If 
we had to deal with a set of habitual offenders, we should most prob¬ 
ably have a high rate of reconviction, whatever the system might be; 
whereas, if we have a large number of average criminals, the percent¬ 
age of reconvictions would naturally be less. 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY COMMISSION. 


» 


179 


Governor Haines, of the United States, said that he felt honored by 
being asked to second the motion to adopt the report. He did, so with 
great pleasure. The propositions presented were comprehensive, yet 
specific; broad in their generalizations, yet sufficiently minute for all 
practical purposes. They constituted an organic rule of action, which, 
while applicable to all countries, was susceptible of adjustment to the 
special ideas and circumstances of each. They might be termed a con¬ 
stitutional law, to be applied and enforced by particular enactments. 
He hoped that the motion to adopt the report would receive the unani¬ 
mous vote of the congress. 

Miss Carpenter said it was impossible to exaggerate the importance 
of this congress and its work. It inaugurated absolutely a new era in 
the history of civilization. The chairman would recollect that, when 
many years ago he presided over a committee on juvenile delinquency, 
it was most difficult to persuade the members of the committee and the 
public that even children ought not to be severely punished for crimes, 
and their reformation was deemed quite a secondary consideration. As 
a witness she was asked, u Do you not consider that children who have 
broken the law owe retribution to society V’ and her answer w r as, 
“ Society owes retribution to them.” She was proud of that answer. Its 
truth and justness have been substantially recognized by this congress. 

The president, Sir John Packington, before putting the question, begged 
to remind the congress that the report before them was the unanimous re¬ 
port of an essentially representative committee, which consisted of one del¬ 
egate from each of the many nations represented; the fact that, after many 
days’ discussion by the congress of subjects of the deepest interest, as 
well as most complicated and difficult, such a committee had agreed 
unanimously upon a report of great breadth and comprehensiveness, 
claiming to represent the general sentiment of the congress on all the 
great questions considered and debated by it. This fact he considered 
one on which the body might well be congratulated as a satisfactory 
termination of its proceedings. Such unanimous agreement fairly jus¬ 
tified the conclusion that the discussions had not been in vain. A body 
of men, occupying the best possible position for knowing the sentiments 
of the congress, and perfectly competent to understand them, had unan¬ 
imously reported, as embodying those sentiments, a series of proposi¬ 
tions, enumerating great principles, which covered almost the whole 
field of penitentiary science and prison discipline. It was, therefore, a 
matter of satisfaction and thankfulness that the interesting debates had 
not been unproductive of good result. 

The motion on the adoption of the report was then put, and was 
agreed to without dissent. 

§ 5. Creation of a permanent international penitentiary commission .— 
On the recommendation of the executive committee a permanent organ¬ 
ization, under the above designation, was created, charged with the 
duty of watching over the general interests of international prison re¬ 
form, but more especially with that of preparing formulas for the collec¬ 
tion of penitentiary statistics, and seeking to secure their adoption and 
use in all countries. This commission is composed of the following gen¬ 
tlemen : Dr. Wines, of the United States, president; Mr. Beltrani-Sca- 
lia, of Italy, secretary; Mr. Loyson, of France; Baron von Hoitzen- 
dorff, of Germany; Count Sollohub, of Russia; Mr. Hastings, of Eug- 
land; Dr. Frey, of Austria; Mr. Stevens, of Belgium; Mr. Pols, of 
Netherlands ; Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland. 

It is understood that the first meeting of the commission will’be held 
in Brussel^, Belgium, during the month of September, 1873. 


180 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


§ 0. Dr. Wines reported from the international executive committee a 
resolution of thanks to its chairman, Mr. Hastings, and moved its adop¬ 
tion by the congress. He said that the resolution had received the unani¬ 
mous and cordial approval of the committee, whose members all recog¬ 
nized their obligations to their chairman for the dignity, courtesy, fairness, 
and ability with which he had presided over their deliberations. Although 
the congress could not know, as his colleagues knew, the value of his 
services in the committee-room, yet he felt sure that the whole house 
would concur with the members of the committee in the vote of thanks 
now proposed. 

Archbishop Manning, in seconding the resolution, said that their thanks 
were due, not only to those who had come from all countries to the con¬ 
gress, but also to those who, being on the spot, had labored incessantly, 
not simply during the last three weeks, but for a long time past, in 
preparing for the congress. To them thanks were greatly due for their 
unwearied industry and close application, and, he must say, for the 
happy termination of the congress. 

A member proposed to include a vote of thanks to Mr. Pears, secre¬ 
tary of the congress. 

The chairman said he could not put these resolutions to the meeting 
without adding an expression of his own deep sense of the valuable and 
important assistance which the congress had received from Mr. Hastings 
and Mr. Pears, and his belief that, had it not been for the happy combina¬ 
tion of zeal and ability which had distinguished their exertions, the pro¬ 
ceedings of the congress would not have been so satisfactory as they 
had been. 

The resolution was carried unanimously. 

§ 7. Mr. Aspinall, of England, proposed a vote of thanks to Dr. Mouat, 
for the invaluable services he had rendered the congress in translating 
the many-tongued speeches which had been addressed to it. He had 
never met with a man who could translate every language into every other 
with such promptness, elegance, and force as Dr. Mouat, superadded to 
which the doctor had the great advantage of being thoroughly ac¬ 
quainted with all the questions which came before the congress for dis¬ 
cussion. He felt sure that he need only name these things to call forth 
a cordial response from the meeting. 

Baron Mackay, of Holland, in seconding the proposition of Mr. As¬ 
pinall, took occasion also to make recognition of the valuable assistance 
of Sir Walter Crofton and Major Du Cane. He represented a foreign legis¬ 
lature which had not yet adopted a system of prison discipline ; there¬ 
fore, he had listened with great attention to all proposals, and the 
arguments by which they had been supported, aud he was sure that in 
his country the volume of transactions, which they would owe to the 
editorial care of Mr. Pears, would be carefully read and digested. Eng¬ 
land and Ireland were in possession of a system, but on the continent 
that compliment could be paid ouly to Belgium. This fact showed that 
the people of ot^ier countries had not yet made up their minds, and was 
in itself a justification of this congress. Differences of nationality could 
not account for the wide discrepancies of opinion and experience as to 
separate and associated confinement. 

The motion was carried without dissent. 

§ 8. Dr. Guillaume, of Switzerland, moved a resolution of thanks to 
Dr. Wines. His name was the first word spoken in the congress, and 
it should be the last. The conference had begun with him, and it should 
end with an acknowledgment of his efforts. He represented the An¬ 
glo-Saxon race, the champion of humanity and of all that concerned the 


SUNDRY VOTES OF THANKS. 


181 


well-being of the human family. That race stood foremost in the new 
order of civilization which was dawning on the world, and by the arbi¬ 
tration at Geneva it had set an example to all Countries of a pacific settle¬ 
ment of differences and the abolition of that greatest of crimes, war. 
Switzerland was grateful to England and the United States for having 
chosen it as the seat of that tribunal, and it was a good omen that Ge¬ 
neva, the cradle of the organization for the succor of the wounded oil 
the battle-field, should be the scene of a great international arbitration. 
The abolition of slavery in America, the Geneva arbitration, and this 
great congress for the reformation of prisoners, were gratifying tokens 
of the new order of things. 

Dr. Marquardsen, on behalf of the German delegates, seconded the 
motion. Before the congress met they all felt that Dr. Wines was the 
heart and soul of the undertaking; and, now that it had closed, they were 
sensible that to him they had been deeply indebted for its satisfactory 
progress and conduct. The German Parliament,of which he was a mem¬ 
ber, would shortly be engaged in framing a general law of prison dis¬ 
cipline, nml he doubted not that the law would show many traces of the 
beneficial results of this congress. 

Sir John Packington, in putting the resolution, testified to the im¬ 
portant part Dr. Wines had taken in convening and carrying on the 
congress. The motion was carried unanimously. 

Dr. Wines said the remarks which had been made and the vote which 
had been passed were more than a reward for all the toil and anxiety 
which he had undergone during the three years he had devoted to pre¬ 
paring and organizing the congress. It had in all respects surpassed 
liis expectations, and he assured them of his best wishes for the suc¬ 
cessful prosecution of the great work of penitentiary reform in the 
various countries w hence they came, and w hich they so ably represented. 

§ 9. Mr. Hastings, of England, proposed a vote of thanks to Sir John 
Packington, the president for the day. No Euglish statesman could 
more fitly have occupied that position. Prior to being called on by his 
sovereign to those high offices wffiich he had filled with so much honor 
to himself and advantage to the country, he was for twenty-five years at 
the head of the Worcestershire quarter-sessions, and was universally 
acknowledged to be one of the ablest and most competent chairmen that 
county ever had. His experience in all matters connected with the ad¬ 
ministration of the criminal law had been immense, and he had always 
advocated, in and out of Parliament, improvements in prison discipline, 
and every measure for the prevention of crime and the reformation of 
the criminal. 

Dr. Mouat seconded the motion, expressing hearty concurrence in all 
that Mr. Hastings had said. 

Mr. Hastings put the motion, and it was carried unanimously. 

The president, in responding, said that he had been glad to be of any 
use in promoting the success of the congress. He hoped that the dis¬ 
tinguished persons who had come from other countries,and had devoted 
their high character and ability to the promotion of the objects in view, 
Tvould reflect with pleasure on w hat they had seen and heard, and would 
feel justified in thinking that the purpose of their mission had been as 
much forw r arded as the short duration of the congress could have war¬ 
ranted them in expecting. 


PART THIRD. 


PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE CONGRESS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

A large number of papers was offered to the congress in the form of 
essays or discussions of questions connected with penitentiary science 
and prison discipline. The most of these were by specialists of eminence 
and ability in many different countries. A few' of them were given, in 
full or in part, as opening addresses on the questions discussed in the 
congress, and the substance of all such is embodied in the summary of 
those discussions contained in Part Second of this report. To offer even a 
full analysis of all the others, however worthy they might be, (and cer¬ 
tainly they are worthy,) w T ould swell the present report to an unreason¬ 
able length. It was, therefore, necessary to make a selection, and the 
choice has been determined by some special novelty, either in the sub¬ 
ject or its treatment, or by some peculiar characteristic of some other 
kind, which marked the paper with a special stamp. Another person 
would perhaps have made a different selection, and in doing so might 
have chosen more wisely; but this w as a ease in which it was impossible 
to consult the judgment of others, and the undersigned was forced to 
rely upon his own, however great might be the loss thereby occasioned 
to the reader. Moreover, he has felt obliged to limit himself to a moder¬ 
ate number of the essays submitted, and even these he will be constrained 
to condense as much as may be without injustice to the writers* 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

PRISONERS AND THEIR REFORMATION. 

Mr. Z. R. Brockway, superintendent of the Detroit House of Correc¬ 
tion, and one of the most eminent among the prison officers of Amer¬ 
ica, communicated a paper on the subject which forms the title to the 
present chapter. 

Civilized sentiment (he says in substance) concedes that the protec¬ 
tion of society is the main purpose of imprisonment; but effective pro¬ 
tection requires one of tw r o conditions: the reformation of the criminal 
or his continued detention. Hence reformation is the immediate object 
to be sought. But doubt exists in many minds whether prisoners gen¬ 
erally can be reformed, and even prison officers have little hope of this* 
The writer, however, believes that criminal law may be so reformed in 
its spirit and administration as to produce a soothing and healing, 
instead of an irritating and festering, effect upon prisoners, and restore 
a large proportion of them to society. The species of crime to which a 
person is addicted depends upon the circumstances which surround him, 



PRISONERS AND THEIR REFORMATION. 


183 


or upon inherited tendencies, or both; but whether a man will commit 
crime at all depends, to a great degree, upon his constitutional charac¬ 
teristics. 

Since the welfare of society is the true measure of every man’s per¬ 
sonal interest, it follows that a criminal act proves obliquity of some 
kind in the perpetrator—moral imbecility, incoherent mental develop¬ 
ment, feebleness of will-power. Nor is this to be wondered at, since 
criminals are so commonly without systematic education, by which 
alone the moral, mental, and volitional powers can be rightly and 
effectively trained. All who have studied criminals closely must have 
observed the undeveloped, incongruous, ill-balanced state of their 
higher powers, and the consequent sway of the animal instincts. Mr. 
Brockway says that he has been constantly surprised at the blindness 
ot prisoners to the moral quality of their conduct. This undeveloped 
state, this paralysis, as it were, of the moral faculties, though, no doubt, 
largely due to the want of proper early education, he nevertheless be¬ 
lieves to be often inherited from progenitors; and he adduces very 
striking statistics in support of this belief. Now, if there is a common 
idiosyncracy among criminals, consisting in the activity of the grosser 
and more selfish impulses, and in the imbecility or absence of the moral, 
reflective, or volitional faculties, the writer asks, have we not found the 
right basis of a reformatory system,whose philosophy may be stated in 
the one word —cultivation f 

Mr. Brockway discusses at considerable length the comparative merits 
of the Philadelphia and Auburn systems of prison discipline, and, while 
giving his preference to the latter, arrives at the conclusion that no sys¬ 
tem of imprisonment can regularly produce reformed convicts so long 
as the present or any like system of sentences prevails. lie believes 
that the true remedy lies in the substitution of indeterminate or reform¬ 
atory sentences in place of mere time-sentences. His personal experi¬ 
ence, from recent legislation of his own State of Michigan, embodying 
a partial adoption of this principle, is altogether confirmatory of its 
truth and soundness, and demonstrates beyond contradiction the prac¬ 
ticability of its application. He found that it tended to cultivate in 
criminals a kindly feeling for the law and its executors; and its effect, 
he argues, must necessarily be to increase for society protection from 
criminals, either through this continued restraint or their reformation, 
the latter of which objects cannot fail to be essentially aided by enlist¬ 
ing the active co-operation of criminals in their own improvement. 

Mr. Brockway lays down the postulate that any change in the char¬ 
acter and life of criminals must be effected by one of two methods: in¬ 
timidation or education. Bestraint by intimidation does not go to the 
root of matters; it touches only the surface, and must, therefore, be but 
momentary. Beformation, therefore, cannot be through intimidation ; 
it must of necessity be the result of such cultivation of the mind and 
heart as is required to give the criminal knowledge and appreciation of 
the beneficent design and friendly protection of law, to supply better 
thoughts andimpulses, and to invest with authoritative control the mind’s 
legitimate sovereign, the will. The educational effort in prisons, if made 
efficient for reformation, must be broadly and thoroughly organized ; it 
must be such as to develop and strengthen, not only the mental, physi¬ 
cal, and industrial faculties of the prisoner, but also his moral and relig¬ 
ious nature. 

The effectual reformation of criminals requires: 1, a graduated series 
of penitentiary establishments, embracing a phase of the separate sys¬ 
tem, of the congregate sileut system, and of the congregate social sys- 


184 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


tern ; 2, centralized control, with guardian care of discharged prisoners; 
3, the principle of indeterminate or reformatory sentences; 4, indus¬ 
trial, scholastic, and religious education and culture; and, 5, a better 
public sentiment on the whole penitentiary question and on that ot the 
laboring classes in general. 


CHAP TEE XXIY. 

CUMULATIVE PUNISHMENTS. 

A paper of high practical interest and value on this subject was con¬ 
tributed by Messrs. Clarke Aspinall, Edward Lawrence, and S. Grey 
Kathbone, on behalf of the Liverpool magistracy, England. They com¬ 
mence by reciting two resolutions unanimously passed by the magis¬ 
trates, January 17, 1872, as follows: 1, that it is desirable that the cu¬ 
mulative principle be applied to the punishment of all classes of crimes 
and offenses; and, 2, that it is further desirable that the visiting justices 
(corresponding to our boards of prison managers) should be empowered 
to transfer well-conducted prisoners to homes for a short period prior to 
the termination of their sentences. These resolutions are followed by a 
table, showing the number of prisoners confined in the Liverpool 
borough-prison during the first six months of the official year 1870-71, 
who had been committed fifteen times and more: 


Fifteen times and 

Twenty times 

Thirty times and 

Forty times 

Fifty times and 

Seventy times 

under twenty. 

and under thirty. 

under forty. 

and under fifty 

under seventy. 

and upward. 

Females .... 93 

121 

61 

14 

14 

3 

Males . 38 

28 

12 

1 

4 

1 


The authors of the paper are strongly of the opinion, in which all re¬ 
flecting persons must concur, that punishments should be gradually in¬ 
creased in severity, it offenses are often repeated. This opinion is based 
upon two grounds, viz: first, becau.se long sentences would be more 
formidable, and therefore more deterrent to persons who had become 
indifferent to short ones ; and, secondly, because such sentences would 
aid persons who had become addicted to a disorderly or criminal life to 
abandon it, by giving greater scope to the action of reformatory in¬ 
fluences. 

When the criminal laws shall have been amended in the direction 
indicated, so that terms of imprisonment of considerable duration are 
imposed on habitual petty transgressors, it is the opinion of the writers 
that the prison authorities should have power to transfer any prisoners, 
under proper limitations, to any home which is willing to receive them, 
aud is at the same time under the management of a certified dis¬ 
charged prisoners’ aid society. The advantage of such an arrange¬ 
ment would be that w T ell-conducted prisoners could be selected 
and placed in such homes for some time prior to their discharge, in a 
state intermediate between the stringent restraints of the prison and 
perfect liberty. In such a state they would have better opportunities 
than can be afforded in a prison of exercising and acquiring habits of 
self-control, and of earning such a character as may facilitate their 
















CUMULATIVE PUNISHMENTS—TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 185 

obtaining an honest living when discharged. Several homes for adult 
discharged prisoners (the authors of the paper say) have been es¬ 
tablished, and, if successful, more would no doubt be opened by volun¬ 
tary effort, and the expenses of adult prisoners would not be large, if the 
homes were well managed and placed in situations favorable for the 
profitable carrying on of the industries in which their inmates were oc¬ 
cupied. The prisoners, knowing that if they did not work well, the 
managers of the homes would return them to the deprivations of a 
prison, would have a potent stimulus to real industry, for it would of course 
be one of the conditions of the transfer of a prisoner to a home that, if 
he or she became idle, disorderly, or discontented, the prisoner should 
be returned to prison for the remainder of the senteuce. The writers 
suggest that the homes should not be largely, if at all, subsidized from 
public funds. Their utility will depend much on the labor in them 
being of the genuine kind, which would render them to a great extent 
self-supporting, and all or most of the deficiency should be raised by 
the managers, as a guarantee that they are really interested in the 
w r ork. It would be far better that the growth of such homes should 
be slow and gradual, as the fruit of satisfactory experience, than that 
they should be prematurely forced into existence in large numbers by 
such liberal public grants as have been given to reformatories and indus¬ 
trial schools. 

If the proposed amendments in the law were made, it is believed that 
the following results might be hoped for: 

1. That the short sentences passed on young offenders would become 
much more deterrent, because they would be known to lead up to the 
really long sentences, which are unquestionably much feared by nearly 
all the criminal classes. 

2. That under the influence of long detentions, when they became 
necessary, (particularly if part of the time were passed in well-regulated 
homes,) a certain proportion of the offenders would be reformed. 

3. That the residuum of reckless incorrigibles would be detained in 
prison under a succession of long sentences instead of a succession of 
short sentences, from which the great advantage would arise that they 
would have fewer opportunities of committing crimes themselves and of 
training up others in bad ways, while the expense of their imprison¬ 
ment would not be materially, if at all, increased, since the labor of 
long-time prisoners can be made profitable to an extent quite impossi¬ 
ble in the case of short-time prisoners. 

4. That the power of the police to enforce order and decency in the 
streets could be supported by the magistracy far more efficiently than 
under existing laws. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 

The right honorable Sir Walter Crofton offered a valuable paper 
under the above caption. He lays down the proposition that the end of 
punishment is twofold: amendment and example. But it is difficult to 
embrace both these requirements in a system of prison discipline. A 
system of natural training from the start might amend individuals ami 
reconcile the public to their employment on discharge; but how would 



186 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


such a system prove exemplary to others! An artificial system, carried 
through from the beginning to the end, would be an example to the 
criminally disposed; but would such a system reform prisoners and 
further their employment on their release! 

Iteflecting upon these things, when called to preside over the convict- 
department in Ireland, he was led to discard each of these plans as a 
system complete in itself, for he felt that they would fail to attain the 
object in view, but that, as component parts of one system, definite and 
distinct in their several arrangements, both plans might be beneficially 
employed, and the one made so to lead up to the other as to give to the 
whole, in the mind of the criminal, the felt aspect of amendment. But 
in order to attain amendment, you must gain the co-operation of the 
criminals, to effect which they must realize that their punishment is 
not merely retributive , but that it has a benevolent aim, and that this 
aim is to improve them. 

Long experience has enabled him to state that if this point is made 
sufficiently clear to the mind of the criminal at the commencement of 
the sentence, it will not be in hostility to those placed over him, even in 
the necessarily penal and more stringent stages of his punishment, for 
he will “look to the end,” and hope will be ever present with him. 

The solution of this problem, to his mind, lay in a classification which 
should lead, by successive stages, from very great strictness to a state 
of semi-freedom, in which the reformation of the criminal might be sat¬ 
isfactorily tested through the absence of the artificial restraints neces¬ 
sary in the earlier stages of detention. 

To give to these stages in classification real value, it was necessary 
that self-control and self-denial should be developed in the process. 
To attain the object in view, the idle and ill-disciplined should become 
industrious and orderly. No plan could so well effect this result as 
marks, (introduced into Ireland in 1854,) or numerical records of labor. 

But without associating industry in the minds of criminals with profit 
and pleasure, the marks would not be gained, and the end in view would 
be lost. As a general rule, it may be assumed that the criminal classes 
dislike labor. But if labor is made a privilege to be earned by its absence 
in the very earliest stages of seclusion and by its gradual introduction, 
coupled with other advantages as classification advances, it will by 
degrees, slowly perhaps at first , but surely , supplant idleness in the ma¬ 
jority of criminals. 

Those conversant with the plan of convict treatment introduced into 
Ireland in 1854 will at once perceive that the principles of prison train¬ 
ing just sketched formed the basis of the system. 

So far as the prison discipline of the system is concerned, we have, 
then: 

1. The stage of penal and stringent discipline. 

2. The stage of associated labor, (with separate dormitories.) in 
which, by means of progressive classification governed by marks, the 
industrial improvement and self-control of the prisoner are both stimu¬ 
lated and tested by the motive power which is at work, viz, improve¬ 
ment in present position and the opportunity of obtaining earlier libera¬ 
tion. It will be at once realized that thus the criminal, within certain 
defined limits, becomes the arbiter of his own fate, and the system is 
deprived of any aspect of vengeuce, while it secures the co-operation 
of the prisoner in his own improvement. It is scarcely necessary to 
point out the self-drilling which is required under such a system, if the 
advantages held out by progressive classification are to be reaped. 

When these two stages are satisfactorily passed—i. c., when the crim- 


PREVENTIVE POLICE ORGANIZATION. 


187 


nals Lave attained the required number of marks to entitle them to 
the privilege—they are removed to a stage of semi-freedom, called the 
third or intermediate stage, which is a stage of probation in a more 
natural state of training before liberation. 

This stage of natural training in its very nature prepares the criminal 
for his return to the ordinary avocations of free life, and reconciles the 
public to his employment. As it has had the test of sixteen years 7 ex¬ 
perience and has more than fulfilled what was expected from it, it 
must be looked upon as a great success. The conduct and industry of 
the inmates during this long period have equaled, and even exceeded, 
those of ordinary laborers in similar positions of temptation. 

Sir Walter believes the above to be the best prison training to pre¬ 
pare a criminal for his release and his re-absorption into society. It is a 
training so simple in its principles that its very simplicity formed at one 
time its great stumbling-block in the minds of men, and so easy of 
application that, in some form, it is suited to every locality and every 
human being. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

PREVENTIVE POLICE ORGANIZATION. 

Mr. Edwiu Chadwick, C. B., of Eugland presented to the congress a 
paper of much ability and breadth on the question of a preventive police. 
One great object (he says) of a compulsory system of public relief for the 
destitute is to disarm the mendicant of his plea that, unless alms be 
given him, he must perish. Juvenile mendicancy leads to juvenile de¬ 
linquency, and both are fed by indiscriminate alms-giving. English 
prisons were, at one time, filled chiefly with delinquents 7 orphans reared 
in mendicancy, who from begging advanced to stealing. Juvenile va¬ 
grancy and juvenile mendicancy are the great seed-plot of adult habitual 
criminality. Most of those who follow stealing as a business have 
mainly entered their careers as juvenile vagrants and mendicants. 
After having, with the aid of able colleagues, completed a report on a 
compulsory system of relief to the poor and after considerable expe¬ 
rience in administering such a system, Mr. Chadwick became convinced 
that to attaip the object of the law in regard to the great evil of vagrancy 
and mendicancy, as well as for other purposes, the concurrent action of 
a police was necessary. But beyond the metropolis there was no force 
in existence deserving the name of a police force. He therefore sug¬ 
gested to the government the expediency of instituting an inquiry into 
the subject. The result was that a royal commission was created for 
that purpose, consisting of himself, Colonel Rowan, chief commissioner 
of the metropolitan police, and Mr. John Shaw Lefevre, M. P. The 
leading results of this inquiry were embodied in Mr. Chadwick’s paper, 
and submitted for the information of the congress. 

The commissioners found, in the first place, that the gains of habitual 
criminals, as arule, greatly exceeded those obtainable by honest industry, 
being in fact, on an average, about double. In the next place, they 
found that their average careers of spoliation upon the community, 
without interruption by arrest and conviction, were about five years in 
duration. More recently the estimate is that habitual depredators spend- 
about one-third of their time in prison, and the other two-thirds at large, 



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plying tlieir craft. The duration of these long careers of uninterrupted 
villainy are owing mainly to two causes: first, to the adroitness of the 
criminals ; and, secondly, to the fact that the party robbed generally dis¬ 
continues the prosecution on the restoration of the property. 

Instances of the reformation of habitual thieves were unknown, and 
the possibility of such reformation was not believed in by the police. 
But proof was given that careers of habitual depredation had been dis¬ 
continued because of difficulties which reduced the chances of escape 
and rendered such depredation less gainful than honest industry, as, for 
instance, highway robbery by mounted and armed horsemen. Evidence 
was given that there were house-breakers who had returned to honest 
occupations since the institution of the police, because the chauces of 
escape had been so far narrowed that the business no longer paid. But 
if the chances of impunity were again lengthened from months to years, 
highway robbers, on foot and mounted, would re-appear, even though 
the gallows and the gibbet should re appear with them. What is 
wanted, therefore, to check criminality, so far as objective agencies are 
concerned, is, not severe punishments, (these have little effect,) but few 
chances of escape, certainty of detection, short careers out of prison, 
and a reduction of the profits below those of honest industry. To leave 
the chances wide open, the careers long, and the profits large, and to 
rely mainly on punitive agencies, would be a wisdom akin to that of 
directing effort to the cure or alleviation of marsh-diseases and leaving 
the marshes undrained. The whole mass of habitual depredation exists 
through the defects of repressive legislation, and especially through the 
want of a properly-organized and systematic pursuit by an effective 
police force. 

But the efficient action of a police depends upon the completeness of 
its information, and this again upon the effective co-operation of the 
public in supplying it. The com missioners found that the police are very 
incompletely informed of the number of depredations committed. They 
also found that the failure of the public to co-operate was owing in some 
degree to carelessness and alow morality, but much more to : 1, a dread 
of trouble and vexation arising from the cumbrous forms of penal pro¬ 
cedure; 2, the absence of systematic public prosecution; and, 3, the 
fact that the charges of prosecution fall mainly on the party robbed, 
and this in addition to the loss and annoyance caused by the depreda¬ 
tion. It hence follows that, for the efficient action of a police and a close 
and successful pursuit, a considerable reform iu penal law and adminis¬ 
tration is necessary, as well as a more general and generous public sup¬ 
port. 

The chief objective points of a police are to render it difficult and 
laborious to get at property, to render it difficult and laborious to 
convert property when obtained, to render it difficult to escape detec¬ 
tion ; and iu this w T ay to narrow the chances of escape to the depredator, 
to shorten his career of impunity, and to reduce the profits of the career 
below those of honest labor. When these ends are attained, particu¬ 
larly the last, the predatory career will be abandoned. Crime for profit 
has subsisted and continues to subsist by the absence or inefficiency 
of systematic organization, devised with a view to detect and punish it. 

The remaining portion of Mr. Chadwick’s paper is mainly taken up 
with an account of the state of things in England and the reforms needed 
there, and has, therefore, little more than a local interest. He closes his 
essay with the statement that the first report of the commissioners was 
directed to the elaboration of the principles of the organization of a 
preventive police force , and that the said report has served very much 


CRIMES OF PASSION AND OF REFLECTION. 


189 


as a text-book for some of the imperfect organizations that exist, and 
that they have the material for a secoud report on the preventive action 
of a police when organized. It is much to be hoped that their second 
report will not be long delayedi 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

CRIMES OF PASSION AND CRIMES OF REFLECTION. 

Rev. Dr. Bittinger, of the United States, submitted a paper to the 
congress treating of crime under the twofold aspect indicated by the 
title which forms the subject of the present chapter. The discussion 
was one of great originality, sharp analysis, and, withal, of a highly prac¬ 
tical cast. The undersigned cannot but regret that an essay of such 
value should not have been given in full. But the respected editor of 
the Transactions, whose prerogative it was to decide upon questions of 
that nature, has inserted in his volume only a short abstract, and with 
that the undersigned must be satisfied. Dr. Bittinger’s view, as epit¬ 
omized in the Transactions, is, in substance, as follows: 

Sin is the primal cause of lawlessness, but it is not amenable to hu¬ 
man legislation until it finds expression in criminal acts. The two factors 
of crime are passion and reflection. The passions differ both in kind 
and degree: they are malign and non-raalign. Reflection differs only in 
degree. Crime is punishable, because it injures society. The character 
and degree of the injuriousness of crime must determine the nature of 
our penal legislation; and the possibility of diminishing crime and re¬ 
forming the criminal must determine the nature of our penal treatment. 
The enormity of criminal acts is modified by their relation to the person 
of the victim as nearer or more remote. Thus murder, rape, mayhem, 
malicious mischief, arson, and robbery have a closeness of relation to 
the person corresponding to the order in which they are named, and the 
same order marks the degree or intensity of guilt which attaches to the 
several acts. Another distinction to be made, which has been already 
alluded to, is between crimes of passion themselves, namely, crimes of 
malign passion, as murder, and crimes of non-malign passion, as rape. 
Acts springing from malign feelings are always criminal, while those 
springing from the non-malign passions are criminal only in their ex¬ 
cess. The rtfalign passions are in their nature objective, being always 
aimed at the person, as murder, mayhem, malicious mischief. The non- 
malign passions are, in their nature, subjective, their aim being ever 
the gratification of one’s self, and not harm to another. The former are 
personal, the latter impersonal. The punishment of crimes of passion 
is aimed at the quality of the passion, as malign or non-malign. The 
punishment of crimes of reflection is aimed at the degree of reflection, as 
involving more or less of intelligence and purpose. Personality, as being 
that which tends most to excite and intensify reflection, is, in general, 
the measure of the offense as regards its guilt: larceny of detached prop¬ 
erty, pocket-picking, burglary, robbery, rape. The nearer the criminal 
gets to the person, the darker is the crime and the sterner should be 
the punishment. Crimes of passion are to crimes of reflection as 1 
to 27. The most inveterate crimes of reflection are the following: Horse¬ 
stealing, burglary, robbery, forgery; and this is the order of their fre¬ 
quency as well as of their guilt. Of crimes of passion the order is murder, 



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rape, felonious assault. Statistics show that grave crimes of passion do 
not tend to repetition, while crimes of reflection tend strongly in that 
direction. Hence, crimes of passion are few, of reflection many. 

For crimes of passion, preventive legislation is the remedy— 

1. By improving the condition of the poor and degraded through 
work, education, and moral instruction and culture. 

2. By protecting all classes through laws against drunkenness, gamb¬ 
ling, and prostitution. 

Crimes of reflection demand repressive and deterrent legislation—such 
as a vigilant police, certain detection, and swift punishment. 

The penal treatment of both these classes should be framed on justice, 
as opposed to vindictiveness. Criminals have rights which justice must 
respect. The moral character of the jailor is of prime importance. The 
jailor and the judge are equally the ministers of justice. The prisoner’s 
sense of justice must be respected by those who are charged with ad¬ 
ministering punishment, or his punishment will neither deter nor re¬ 
form him. In dealing with professional criminals, justice may fitly be 
made to wear an aspect of severity, or at least of sternness ; in dealing 
with crimes of passion, there should be a leaning toward mercy. The 
victim of passion is to be pitied; the criminal of reflection is to be 
punished. The man who does criminal acts under a sudden assault of 
passion leaves room for hope, for cooler moments turn him against him¬ 
self and move him to repentance; the man who deliberates and plans 
his crimes is comparatively hopeless, because coolness is the essence of 
his criminality. The one is overtaken by crime j the other elects it. 
Criminals of passion have no accomplices, but often witnesses; crimi¬ 
nals of reflection have accomplices, but seldom witnesses. The former 
rarely combine, and are without organization; the latter form them¬ 
selves into communities, and organize for crime. 

These characteristic differences between the two classes of crimi¬ 
nals demand a corresponding difference in criminal legislation and penal 
treatment. Dr. Bittinger in his essay explained why and wherein this 
difference of legislation and discipline, as applied to them, consisted. 
But the abstract in the Transactions ends at this point, and the under¬ 
signed is consequently unable to follow him further. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

JOHN HOWARD—HIS LIFE AND SERVICES. 

John Howard eutered upon his career as a prison reformer in the year 
1773. It was therefore fit that an international penitentiary congress, 
convened in England ninety-nine years after that date, should be made 
the occasion of a centenary commemoration of the great English philan¬ 
thropist. By special request, Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D., of the United 
States, delivered, during the sittings of the congress, a discourse on his 
life, character, and services, which was a worthy tribute to the man and 
the cause. The address of Dr. Bellows fills sixty pages of the volume of 
printed Transactions ; it is evident, therefore, that the brief extracts to 
which the undersigned feels constrained to limit himself can give but a 
meager idea of the masterly analysis and glowing eloquence of the dis¬ 
tinguished orator. 

In one of the opening paragraphs of his discourse, Dr. Bellows thus 
speaks of its subject: 



191 


john Howard’s life and services. 

The name of Howard has become a synonym of philanthropy. It is more widely 
known, and known with more unqualified praise and honor, than any private name in 
modern history. Hundreds of associations for charity and beneficence have chosen it 
for their title. It has passed out of the keeping of his own countrymen into that of 
mankind. The lips of little children learn it almost next after that of their divine 
Master. Its glory belongs to neither sex, but celebrates virtues and graces equally 
honorable and acceptable in both. It is one of the few names religion dares to repeat 
in connection with her holiest themes. There is scarcely a shadow upon it. It min¬ 
gles with all that is purest, noblest, most celestial in human feelings. It overleaped, 
even in the days of angry polemics, the walls of sect, and acted as a solvent of bigotry 
and a cement among theological rivals and antagonists. It stands for universal 
mercy, world-wide sympathy, and absolute consecration to human service. A name 
lor mildness, self-forgetfulness, sleepless activity in benevolent work, for interest in 
the most abandoned and repulsive of our species, for hope toward those despaired of 
by all others, for chivalrous and heroic daring against enemies more perilous than 
artillery, but from whom even wisdom had accounted it universally permissible to 
flee—pestilence and crime; a name for humility which fled from the echoes of its own 
resonant goodness, wept at the praises it could not escape, and unaffectedly 7 longed to 
be unknown. What a halo hangs around these syllables! Howard! If, as he himself 
declares, not one insulting word or disparaging and contemptuous act ever met his 
eye or ear in the sixteen years of his^pilgrimage among the reprobate class confined in 
the prisons of all Europe,' a hundred years, in which that name has circulated like a 
household word through the homes of civilized man, have hardly produced one jar or 
discord in the universal symphony of love and praise. 

Iu the following sentences Dr. Bellows gives us Howard’s own 
account of what first awakened his interest in prisoners and led him 
to a visitation of prisons: 

Howard says that the first circumstance which excited him to activity in behalf of 
prisoners was in observing, when sheriff of the county of Bedford, that persons 
accused of crimes, but on trial found not guilty, or against whom prosecutors failed to 
appear, after having suffered previous to trial or arraignment mouths of unjust im¬ 
prisonment, were often dragged back to jail and locked up until they should pay sun¬ 
dry fees to the jailer, clerk of assize, Ac. He represented the hardship to the court, 
and begged that the jailer should have a salary iu place of fees. The court was moved 
with the justice of the suggestion, but.wanted a precedent for charging the county 
with the expense. Howard rode into several counties in search of a precedent, and 
his failure to find one did not prevent him from discovering the general sufferings of 
debtors and felons in all the prisons he visited, and waked up au earnest desire to 
alleviate what excited his pity 7 and offended his sense of justice. 

Dr. Bellows describes the zeal, activity, minute diligence, and scrup¬ 
ulous conscientiousness of Howard, in these words: 

Howard had now become unsparing in the demands he made on his own diligence; 
he gave himself barely time to attend to his private obligations. He regarded neither 
distance, labor, nor expense in his investigations. Hundreds of miles, by post, on horse¬ 
back, by night and by day, he hurried through England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the 
Isle of Wight, ubiquitous, making almost superhuman haste, and yet overlooking and 
forgetting nothing. A jail with one prisoner was important enough to draw him fre- 
quentlv to its inspection. He took nothing on hearsay ; made no rough generalization ; 
exposed himself boldly to jail-fever, small-pox, typhus, and every personal trial to 
which delicate sense or humane feelings can be, subjected, that he might be able to 
speak with unanswerable authority on a subject which he had perfectly exhausted. 
Let us remember that this was not a time when immense accumulations of facts, exactly 
observed, had taken the place which they now possess, even in the physical sciences, 
much less iu the moral. Howard’s hunger for facts w r as unexampled in his time. He an¬ 
ticipated even scientific observers in rigor, exactness, hesitation to generalize, and patient 
waiting for an exhaustive examination of the field. This was partly due to the want 
in him of a discursive understanding or tendency to generalizing; the absence of a 
lively imagination and an intuitive perception ; but still more to the scrupulous con¬ 
scientiousness of his character, his inability to tell lies ot carelessness, his plodding 
patience and utter self-forgetfulness iu the pursuit of his ends. It is hardly too much 
to say 7 , then, that every 7 prison, bridewell, house of detention, sponging-house, in the 
three kingdoms, and every apartment in each of them, and every individual prisoner 
in every cell, had by this time been under his inquiring eye and had felt his influence. 
The whole race of prison keepers and jail authorities, as well as all the felons, convicts, 
and debtors had seen his face and felt the genuineness, the authority, and the strength 
of his purpose. What other man has made his personality for so many years so directly 
felt by the very persons for whose improvement and reform he was laboring l Asso- 


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ciated beneficence, deputed and vicarious sacrifices for the vicious, organized corpora¬ 
tions for charity and for reform—we all know their necessity, their advantages, and 
their power. But do we not .also know their limitations, their dangers, their exposures 
to superficiality and perfunctory work, their tendency to become at last only costly 
machines, run largely or mainly for the sake of the officers who administer them ? 
John Howard was a sublime exception to the rule which trusts more to the machinery 
than the power that drives it; to the wheels, than the spirit in the wheels. His per¬ 
sonal labors were as abundant as his public reports were few and far between ; his in¬ 
quiries as minute, special, and particular as they were numerous, broad, and universal. 
He swept the whole field, but it was as carefully as if it had been only a single thresh¬ 
ing-floor. 

This account is given of Howard’s first publication of his work on 
the State of the Prisons of England and Wales, with Preliminary Obser¬ 
vations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons and Hospitals : 

Never was so original and costly'a work—costly in the personal sacrifices and severe 
labors it represented, original in being the record of one observer’s personal study of 
a subject hitherto treated only in the library by philosophers like Montesquieu and 
Beccaria—issued with less pretension. Printed at the author’s expense, in a provincial 
town—and, it may almost be said, without a publisher—given away mostly by Howard 
himself, it came out, without the smallest flourish of trumpets or the least aid from an 
expectant public, carefully manipulated by such a skill as now ushers works of import¬ 
ance into the reading world. And it was as modest in its pretensions, restrained in 
style and statement, free from rhetoric and false sentiment, as if it had been a legal 
document. Howard had a perfect eye for facts. He saw them, too, in a true perspec¬ 
tive. He hated sentimentality and romance almost as he did falsehood. He was incapa¬ 
ble, even had he been desirous, of arranging his observations in a pictorial or dramatic 
form. His work, therefore, is a plain, straightforward, condensed narrative of his ob¬ 
servations upon the conditions of all the prisons he visited, with little generalization, 
no philosophy, and few other comments than those of a plain, practical man. But the 
vast accumulation of facts exhaustive of the subject is fitted to produce au effect which 
no abstract and no general inferences could possibly have accomplished. He really 
makes his reader a fellow-traveler, and, by inspiring him with absolute confidence in 
his scrupulous conscientiousness as an observer and recorder, he feels that his impres¬ 
sions from the book are nearly or quite equal in freshness and force to those an actual 
circuit of all the prisons in England and Wales, and of most in Holland, France, and 
Switzerland, would have produced. It may almost be said to have been the first suc¬ 
cessful attempt to arouse public opinion, independent of class or order, to a concern, on 
grounds of justice and humanity, in the treatment of a large and repugnant class of 
our fellow-men. It has become so common since, that the originality and boldness of 
Howard’s course are not fully appreciated. Prior to that time, the appeal of all social 
reformers had been to scholars, philosophers, statesmen. Howard addressed the ordi¬ 
nary intelligence of tradesmen and the great middle class. He did not shoot an inch 
above their heads, and still less above their hearts. The narrative form of his book 
adapted it to its end, and nothing but its cumbrous size aud cost prevented it from a 
still wider circulation. 

Such self-denial, such purity of purpose, such self-subsistent efforts as Howard’s could 
not but give an apostolic character to his reputation, disarm criticism, and almost place 
him and his work outside the common arena of judgment. It is not too much to say 
that his personal character, as exhibited in his work, was itself almost a new revelation 
of humanity ; and so moved and amazed England, that the suggestions aud wishes of 
such a working saint weeded hardly any support except its own sublime simplicity and 
unparalleled devotion. Martyrs dying in the cause of religion the world had known, 
and soon failed to reverence. But saints living through labors and dangers and sacri¬ 
fices such as Howard encountered, to soften the lot of the most degraded and opprobri¬ 
ous class of human beings—felons and murderers, thieves and robbers—and that with¬ 
out regard to country, race, creed, color, and at no possible advantage to himself—at 
his own risk and cost, and without any warrant or authority but his own will: this had 
made an impression on the English public which was uuique, complete, and without 
deduction. And it is no wonder that Howard’s work, though its circulation was neces¬ 
sarily limited, should, by the aid of citations in the public press, have created what 
came, as near as the condition of England then allowed, to a universal interest. 

The concluding paragraphs of Dr. Bellows’s address contain what 
may be called at once a comparison and a contrast between two of the 
most eminent and remarkable men of the eighteenth century. He 
says: 

There are two characters belonging to the last century who may be said in differ- 
ent ways to have left a stronger impression on the world than any other two men of 


john Howard’s life and services. 


193 


their time, who were not connected with political, scientific, economic, or literary 
affairs; both Englishmen, both cosmopolites, and both originators of movements that 
have swept over the whole face of the earth, and drawn the admiration and sympathy 
of successive generations to their respective undertakings ; both men whose influence 
continues and increases, and who have taken their places among the permanent orna¬ 
ments and benefactors of their race: John Wesley and John Howard. Wesley the elder 
was born in 1703 and died in 1791. Howard was born in 1726 and died 1790, one year 
only before his great contemporary. They resembled each other even in person, both 
being men of light weight, spare, under-sized, and of ascetic and self-denying habits. 
Both were men unconformed to the world, and living habitually in view of another 
state of being; both intensely religious and Christian in faith and temper; both eaten 
up with a zeal for the welfare of their fellow-creatures; both self-subsistent and self- 
relying men, so far as dependence on human sympathy is concerned. Both were men 
of immense powers of work, who never spared themselves when personal sacrifices of 
ease, sleep, food, society, friendship, could advance their unselfish aims. Both pos¬ 
sessed unflinching courage, and met the prejudices, passions, and perils of unpopular 
causes, and of rude and violent classes, with the firmest, calmest, and most controlling 
will. Both were equally marked by invincible convictions, a single and undeviating 
aim, an indomitable resolution which success could not intoxicate nor opposition tame. 
Both were practical men of great executive ability, aiming at clear and definite ends, 
with clear-cut purposes, and little embarrassed by speculative misgivings, self-distrust, 
or deference to others’ opinions. Both relied mainly upon their own personal judg¬ 
ment, their own persoual exertions, their own self-sacrificing spirit and labors for their 
success. Both were intensely protestant in their principles and intensely papal in 
their sense of infallibility—men who could only lead, not follow ; govern, not obey. 
Both were wholly consecrated to their aims, above the temptations of riches and 
honors ; holding pomp, place, ostentation, ease, money, applause, in contempt, and 
freely spending all they possessed or created, at the service of the needy. They both 
lived on horseback, and were, in an age of obstructed intercourse, ubiquitous—travel¬ 
ing by night and by day, with a speed practically equal to that which even modern 
facilities afford to self-indulgent travelers; careering through these three kingdoms, 
and into the remotest parts of the islands, in a way to make themselves equally at 
home in city and hamlet, among the rich and the poor. 

Wesley is computed to have journeyed a quarter of a million of miles on his volun¬ 
tary itineracy, chiefly on horseback; and Howard probably traveled in the same 
way, in a life twenty years shorter, half as far. But what he lacked in miles was 
made up in the variety of the countries he visited, the scope of the circuits he made, 
the character of the obstacles and perils he encountered, and the solitary nature of his 
pursuits. Considering that his public work was confined within sixteen years, was 
begun in middle life, and ended at the natural period of human existence, he perhaps 
exceeded in the intensity of his labors and sacrifices, for the time he was engaged in it, 
any equal period in Wesley’s laborious life. But Wesley began his work at twenty-six, 
and continued it to eighty-eight, with almost equal spirit and activity from the be¬ 
ginning to the close—an unexampled miracle of toil and persistency. 

Wesley encountered persoual passions, hatred, scorn, violence, ignorance, and con¬ 
tempt ; was pelted with stones and garbage, with lampoons and polemic abuse; had 
knives and pistols drawn upon him ; encountered mobs and soldiery; was in frequent 
danger of his life. Howard faced dangers more fearful to brave men : jail-fever, pest¬ 
ilence, plague, and the apathy of all the best portion of society. Mobs and persecution 
might have supported his courage by the anger and defiance they rouse, but he needed 
no such stimulants. He was brave, without witnesses or visible enemies, without ex¬ 
citement or organized opposition ; not braver than Wesley, for who could be? but as 
brave under more depressing circumstances. Wesley’s weapon was his tongue, cloven 
with the flame of the Holy Spirit. With it alone he carved his way through all oppo¬ 
sition, calming tumultuous mobs with its spell; subduing violent and wicked spirits 
with its divine meekness and power, and converting, like the first apostles, thousands 
in a day. And what his never-silent nor weary tongue did not accomplish, his ever- 
active pen did—keen, plain, with less ink and more blood in it than any pen that ever 
w rote so much—a pen that uttered things, not words, terse, unornamented, wholly to 
the purpose, vigorous, and decisive. Howard had no cunning in his tongue nor iu his 
pen ; not a man of thought nor of words, but a man ot action ; his weapon was an 
eye to see, to search, to penetrate to the very bottom, to pursue into every hiding- 
place the evil and curse that had aroused his mingled sense ot justice and humanity. 
He hunted down the prison wrongs of the world with the ehivalric devotion of a 
Spanish knight or the spirit of Sir Lancelot in solitary pursuit ot the Holy Grail. 
He collected facts with the zeal, the labor, and the patience ot a modern Darwin, iu 
solitary explorations iu distant countries whose tongues he did not speak, and from 
the deepest dungeons, the most poisoned plague-spots, the dreariest and most hateful 
holes, in which the moral and social fungi, whose natural history he sought, were to 
be studied and described. Slow and deliberate, cautious and intent, he spared no 

il. Ex. 185- 13 



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INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


pains, lie shunned no dangers, lie left unturned no stone, lie hurried to no conclusion ; 
he repeated his observations, examined and re-examined his facts; and then, without 
art, circumlocution, rhetoric, or self-display, mainly by the aid of others, laid them 
calmly before the little world who then read books, and left them to work their effects. 

Wesley was an organizer of the first order. He knew how to win, how' to hold, and 
how to use other men. Solitary in plan and purpose, he was eminently social in 
method and co-operative in means. He builded as fast as he collected materials. It 
was no disembodied, uninstituted work, the diffusion of ideas as a spirit, that occupied 
his formative and shaping brain. He was a churchman in every fiber, and he aimed 
at visible, methodic ends—the great methodist, who swept thousands of the 
ablest and most earnest souls of his generation into the ranks of his cause, or¬ 
ganized them with an almost military drill, uniformed them with precise opinions, 
badged them with similar phrases and methods, and left them a distinct corps in the 
church militant, w 7 ith a polity of their own, to make conquest at last of tw r elve millions 
of people, w T ho are destined to multiply into scores of millions before the life Wesley 
gave them has found any superseding rival or absorbent. How r ard was a prophet, and 
not a priest; a prophet of action, no organiser, no founder; an impulse; au example; 
an alarm-bell; a trumpet heard in the night. He w 7 as a sort of John the Baptist, his meat 
locusts and wfild honey, crying in the wilderness, repent, repent. Solitary, difficult 
to work with, and wholly lonely in labors and in aims, he built up no work, he laid 
the foundations of no scheme, he became the architect of no system. But he drew the 
attention of the world and fastened it upon the cruelties, the inefficiency, and the in- 
humaue and unchristian character of the dark prison territory. Nay, by his exalted 
devotion, the noiseless enthusiasm of his labors, the purity and intensity of his zeal, 
his absolute, uncalculating humanity, he made his name not only a landmark but au 
inextinguishable voice, w hich has ever since sounded through the nations, demand¬ 
ing attention to prisoners’ rights and claims. He w ho can thus gild his own name with 
mercy and truth, until it shines over all lands with the glory of an unsetting constel¬ 
lation, who can turn its very letters and syllables into a universal language, until it 
becomes a spell, a synonym for humanity, a rally for the prisoner’s relief, has joined 
the small company of the immortals in human history, and is among the saints, apostles, 
martyrs, w ho stand nearest to the Head of the glorious company in heaven. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE PRISON OF GHENT. 

M. Auguste Visscliers, a jurist and philanthropist of great distinction 
and ability, was one of five commissioners named by the government to 
represent Belgium in the congress of London. Forbidden by his physi¬ 
cian, on account of the state of his health, to leave home at the time of 
the meeting of the congress, he communicated in print a paper entitled, 
“ Notice relating to the construction of the prison of Ghent, decreed by 
the States of Flanders in 1771, and to the two memoirs drawn up by the 
Viscount J. P. Vilain XIV, on the subject of the establishment of the 
said prison in 1771-1775, followed by some considerations on the 
progress atid development of the penitentiary system.” No more inter¬ 
esting or instructive paper was offered to the congress, yet, by some 
unaccountable oversight—for certainly there could have been no such 
design—it does not appear, nor is any allusion made to it, in the volume 
of Transactions issued by order of the body and edited by its secretary, 
Edwin Pears, esq., under the supervision of an English committee ap¬ 
pointed for that purpose. For this reason, and because of the exceed¬ 
ingly interesting character of the information offered by M. Visscliers 
in his historical essay, information so honorable to his country and to 
one of its eminent citizens, the undersigned has deemed it fit and desir¬ 
able to give in the present chapter a somewhat extended summary of 
its contents. 

M. Visscliers divides his paper into seven sections, or, as he names 
them, chapters, each treating of a special department of his subject. 



THE PRISON OF GHENT. 


195 


The first section treats of the state of society in the Belgian provinces, 
near the middle of the eighteenth century, and of the imperfection of 
its repressive laws. The author says that at this time the whole of 
Europe was desolated by the scourge of innumerable mendicants and 
vagrants, a scourge which the laws and customs rather encouraged 
than repressed. That enlightened and able Empress, Maria Theresa, 
moved by this state of things, sought to introduce remedial measures 
more effective than those previously employed. A letter of Prince 
Charles of Lorrain, governor-general of the Austrian low countries, 
dated August 2, 1765, called the attention of the privy council to the 
abuses existing in the administration of criminal justice, and particularly 
to the inefficacy of the punishments of whipping, branding, and banish¬ 
ment for the repression of crimes. M. de Fierlant resumed the discus¬ 
sion of these questions in the session of the privy council of April 13, 
1771. He denounced infamous and torturing puuishments, and advo¬ 
cated, instead, the immediate establishment of houses of correction, de¬ 
claring that people without honor could not be restrained by the fear of 
infamy; that neither the scaffold, nor the scourge, nor the branding- 
iron could ever put an end to disorders which had their source in a dis¬ 
like of work, and that the only means of correcting the indolent and 
the idle was to compel them to labor. M. Visschers cites two state papers 
of the Empress Maria Theresa, honorable alike to her intelligence and 
her humanity, in which she recommends the gradual abolishment of 
capital punishment, except in cases of atrocious crime, and the estab¬ 
lishment of correctional prisons to take the place of these punishments. 
He mentions also another letter of Prince Charles of Lorraine, under 
date of May 11,1772, pressing the work of building the prison at Ghent, 
agreeably to the plan of the Viscount Vilain, with sepaiate cells for each 
prisoner, that it might serve as a model and an incitement to the other 
provinces. 

The second section touches briefly on the principal events in yie life, 
as well as on the more important writings, of the founder of the house 
of correction of Ghent, the Viscount J. P. Vilain. Born at Ghent in the 
year 1712, this great man passed through all the gradations of public 
honor and responsibility in his native country, ever showing himself 
able, wise, and faithful, and closed a career, at once useful and illus¬ 
trious, in 1777, at the age of sixty-five years. His works were chiefly 
memoirs or essays on finance, economics, and penitentiary science, all of 
a practical character, all marked by broad common sense aud a keen in¬ 
sight, and all intended to promote the highest interest and welfare of 
the state. 

Section third enters into the heart of the subject, giving a most inter¬ 
esting resume of the two memoirs of the Viscount Vilain, in 1771 aud 
1775, for the construction aud internal arrangement of the house of cor¬ 
rection. The first presents the basis on which the new establishment 
was to be founded. The second is mainly taken up with setting forth 
the rules and regulations of the house. In the former the viscount 
maintains that mendicity and vagrancy are encouraged and fostered by 
the hospitals and alms-houses intended for their relief and prevention, 
and that they form the seed-plot and nursery of theft aud robbery. Of 
64,681 paupers then found in Flanders, exclusive of the cities, fully one- 
half were able-bodied mendicants, imposters, vagabonds, wandering from 
village to village and committing all sorts of spoliations upon the honest 
people of the country. He says that for such offenses there were no pun¬ 
ishments between fines and tortures, and asks why it would not be bet¬ 
ter to make of these sturdy beggers workmen useful to the public before 


196 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


they became criminals. He then examines the question of cost, and 
concludes that the proposed house of correction would be an economic 
measure as compared with the expenses of justice and the losses occa¬ 
sioned by the spoliators. 

The proposition received the assent of the states of Flanders and of 
the Empress Maria Theresa. It was determined, according to the 
recommendations of the viscount’s report, that there should be a sepa¬ 
rate ward for able-bodied mendicants, a second for women, a third for 
laborers out of employment who desired work, and a fourth for the 
children of paupers, it w 7 as ordained, not only that there should be a 
separate establishment for each of these classes, but that each indi¬ 
vidual should be confined separately at night. The first three wards, 
radiating from a common center,’were erected in the year 1772-1773, 
and provisional regulations for the discipline w ere decreed in February, 
1773; but the general opening did not take place till May, 1775. 

After two years’ experience the Viscount Vilain presented to the states 
his second memoir, in 1775. The first was intended to prepare for the 
creation of the establishment, the second to consolidate it. In it he 
remarks that the punishments inflicted on the bandits who caused the 
honest laborer to tremble—exile, whipping, branding—effected no im¬ 
provement in them, and were a remedy for nothing. The offenders 
rather grew 7 worse. He believed it would be preferable to change these 
punishments to correctional imprisonment. There was, however, a 
peril to which the new experiment was exposed, that might prove 
disastrous; it was that of having too great a number at the beginning. 
Provision was made against this danger by the resolution to receive 
only a limited number, and to increase it when the first comers should 
be reformed and inured to labor. 

The fourth section describes the plan and interior division of the 
house of correction of Ghent. The general plan was that of wings 
radiating from one center, five of which were completed in 1775 and 
the remaining three not until 1827. The first wing on the left, as you 
enter, was alone at that time used as a prison for criminals. The 
second was occupied by able-bodied beggars, misdemeanants, and dis¬ 
orderly persons. The third was appropriated to girls and women. The 
other two were destined to the reception of persons in want of work 
and to the children of paupers received on foundations or scholarships. 
Each wing had four stories, with stairs and the necessary private 
entrances. The whole structure was surrounded by an inclosing wall. 
Each prisoner was confined in a separate cell at night. The criminals’ 
wing had two hundred and eighty-four cells, each seven feet long and 
five and a half wide. They were all of the same form and proportions, 
and all provided with the same furniture, viz: a bed six and a half feet 
long and two and a half feet wide, a paillasse, a mattress, a pillow, a 
pair of sheets, and two blankets in winter and one in summer. They 
were also provided with a vessel, a small bench, a hinge-table, and a 
closet in which the prisoners kept their effects. The ground-fioor was 
occupied partly by the work-shops and partly by dark cells for the 
punishment of faults against discipline. 

On the first story was the kitchen, with its adjuncts. The refectory, 
which was contiguous to it, was one hundred anil twenty feet long and 
twenty-six feet wide; eighteen tables might be spread in'it, with twenty 
covers each. 

In the chapel adjoining the refectory was celebrated, Sundays and 
feast-days, divine service, at which all the prisoners were required to 


THE PRISON OF GHENT. 197 

be present, as well as at the sermon, and at daily prayers morning and 
evening. 

The second structure, designed for able-bodied beggars and prisoners 
sentenced for minor offenses, was built and arranged in the same man¬ 
ner, with separate cells for two hundred and fifty. 

The third wing, appropriated to young girls and women, was of the 
same dimensions, containing eight large apartments twenty-two by 
sixteen feet, and forty smaller ones, ten and a half feet in length by 
eight and three-quarters in breadth. The refectory for the women was 
of the same proportions as that for the criminal men. 

The two remaining wings, and the three still to be constructed in 
order to complete the octagon, had a destination which attested the 
breadth of the views which presided over the conception of the plan. 
For the realization of the end proposed, it was expected that there would 
be a foundation of four hundred to five hundred scholarships, yielding 
annually GO florins each. Already the states of Flanders had resolved 
to contribute to this foundation by establishing twenty scholarships. It 
was proposed to establish in the house of correction schools for the 
children of the poor and for apprentices in general, who, for want of 
sufficient means, were unable to acquire the knowledge of trades. 

The broad views and large-hearted humanity of the Viscount Vilain 
are shown in his declaration that 44 this establishment ought to be looked 
upon by the public as a school or nursery of arts and trades for the re¬ 
lief of the really poor, who, deprived of resources sufficient to support 
their children, are obliged to let them languish in idleness and to make 
of them beggars, who, as a consequence, become onerous to the public 
and useless to the state.” 

To encourage this plan, the Empress decreed 44 that those who shall 
become most capable as workmen, shall be received into the trade-cor¬ 
porations of the towns of Flanders which they shall find convenient to 
their locality, without charges of any kind, and without being subjected 
to years of apprenticeship, but only to the production of a trial-piece, 
and that, in addition, they shall enjoy the rights of citizenship (bourge¬ 
oisie) without expense or formalities, in the towns where they shall be¬ 
come members of the trade-corporations.” 

The author of the memoir placed his supreme reliance upon this mode 
of encouraging labor; he sought to prevent crime by combating idle¬ 
ness. Private citizens had already announced their intention to found 
scholarships for the benefit of prisoners of this establishment; and, with 
a view to insqre its success, the great Queen Empress had exhorted the 
bishops, the abbots, the spiritual corporations—in a word, all her sub¬ 
jects—to lend their aid in a project so excellent and useful. 

In the fifth section M. Visschers treats of the administration of the 
prison, its discipline, and the management of its industries. The ad¬ 
ministration was confided, under the general direction of the states of 
Flanders and the special protection of the Empress, to a college of gov¬ 
ernors, composed of three deputies of the assembly of the states, one 
jurist, two notables, and four merchants. The Viscount Vilain was 
made a member of the college. The police and discipline of the estab¬ 
lishment, and the reception, lodging, and conduct of the prisoners, were 
directed by officers who had under their orders various agents, and 
were themselves subject to the instructions of the deputies of the prov¬ 
ince. The management of the industries was confided to a director of 
manufactures, who had under him a number of foremen, and was him¬ 
self guided by the rules and resolutions of the college of governors. An 
accountant kept the books. A surgeon was attached to the house. A 


198 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


chaplain had his residence in the establishment. The Viscount Vilain 
says in his memoir : “ Keligion is not neglected in the prison; it is even 
madeone of theobjects of attention, and is never lost sight of. The change 
of manner, the quietness and submission of the prisoners, and their ex¬ 
emplary observance of the duties of piety assure us of the impression 
which has been made on the minds of many by pious exhortations and 
the word of God.’ 7 

No prisoner was received except upon previous notice, given at least 
forty-eight hours in advance, and on the production of an authentic 
copy of the sentence of the judge or of the decree of commutation of 
afflictive punishments to imprisonment. At first no convict was ad¬ 
mitted who was not able to work and to learn a trade. 

The viscount gives formulas for keeping the registers relating to the 
general state of the prisoners, the trades at which they worked, and the 
product of their labor. A special register showed the amount belonging to 
each prisoner of his share of his earnings. Instructions are set down for 
the management of the hospital and the care to be given to the sick. 
A regulation of the 20th March, 1773, decreed by the Empress, fixed 
everything relating to the maintenance of good order and discipline. 

One of the articles of this decree deserves to be cited at length, as 
showing at once the progress of humanity and the impossibility of 
wholly escaping the influence of the ideas and usages of the times. 
Article 26 reads thus: » 

As regards tlie police of the prison, we reserve it for a separate regulation, but in the 
mean time we declare that the directors, who shall be placed over the police, will not 
be permitted to inflict upon any prisoner graver punishment than that of confinement 
for two days on bread and water; and in case the offense merit a more severe correc¬ 
tion, they shall report it to the first meeting of the administrators, who, on their part, 
will be allowed to prescribe only correctional puuishmeuts, such as being tied for some 
hours to a post, to receive some bloivs with a stick, which shall not exceed twenty-five, 
or of being confined for a moderate time iu a ribbed prison —that is, on a floor with sharp 
edges, ( dans une prison a cotes , sur tin plancher a aretes vives) —or for a few days in an 
ordinary prison on bread and water. 

Article 27 also contains a remarkable provision, and one which must 
have been very sensibly felt by the prisoners when the time for their 
liberation came: 

Every prisoner who, by resolution of the administrators, shall have been confined in 
a ribbed prison, shall remain, for each time that he shall have been so punished, eight 
days iu the prison beyond his term. 

On this the Viscount Vilain pertinently inquires whether, conversely, 
justice does not also require that the prisoner who shall have strictly 
observed the rules and regulations be rewarded. therefor; whether it 
is not just that he who has shown zeal and exactness in the fulfilment 
of his duties, who has labored to reform his manners, and has mastered 
a trade that will insure him an honest living, should not be sooner re 
stored to liberty. If bad conduct prolongs, ought not good conduct 
to abridge his imprisonment? The viscount adds: 

The hope of shortening his captivity would be of the greatest service to him; it 
would be a strong motive to industry and good order; it would tend to beget and 
cherish in him a love of work; and it would certainly be a means of improving the 
discipline. 

Vilain held and proclaimed the soundest opinions regarding the dura¬ 
tion of imprisonments and the utter worthlessness of short detentions 
as an agent of reform. He says: 

The administration will please observe that the term of six months is too short to 
reform criminals and train them to the love and practice of industry. These short- 


THE PRISON OF GHENT. 


199 


term prisoners set a bad example to the others. They say that it is not worth the 
trouble of beginning an apprenticeship; and all their thought is directed to the termi¬ 
nation of their imprisonment, that they may again return to a life of idleness. 

These considerations lead him to the conclusion that the minimum of 
imprisonment should be fixed at a year. On the other side, he says: 

A life-sentence reduces convicts to despair. Deprived of hope, they are indifferent 
alike to reformation and labor, and they turn their attention only to schemes of escape 
or revolt. Since we have not seen fit to deprive them of life, why should we seek to 
make it insupportable to them ? Why not leave them the hope of re-entering society 
after expiating their crimes and rendering themselves worthy by assiduous labor and 
a genuine repentance? 

The viscount, in his memoir, enters into the further inquiry whether, 
by the labor of the prisoners, the establishment may not be made self- 
supporting, and whether this same labor may not even be rendered a 
source of profit to the state without prejudice to free labor outside, and, 
in fine, whether the establishment of the house of correction sufficiently 
answers to the general desire of the public and to the end proposed, 
which is to dry up, or at least lessen, the sources of the evil, viz, idle¬ 
ness and vagrancy, so hurtful to the repose of society. He insists, above 
all, on the necessity of establishing in the house of correction manufac¬ 
tures and trades, which will assure to the prisoners on their liberation 
the means of an honest livelihood by their own labor. The aim is de¬ 
clared to be to impart a love of work, and to form them to habits of in¬ 
dustry. 

Finally, he proposes an establishment or school, under the name of 
hospital—a hospital for moral rather than bodily diseases—where the 
children of the poor will be reared and maintained in labor and good 
manners. The state, he says, is too much interested, has too deep a 
stake, in the extirpation of mendicity, not to make trial of this supreme 
agency to that end. 

In his sixth section M. Visschers has collected divers honorable testi¬ 
monies from various countries attesting the merit of the work so liap- 
pily accomplished by the Viscount Vilain. The first and most impor¬ 
tant is that of the great English philanthropist Howard. He visited the 
prison in 1775- 7 76, and found there two hundred and fifty criminals— 
one hundred and ninety-one men and one hundred and fifty-nine 
women. Being present at the dinner of the male prisoners, he admired 
the regularity, decency, and order with which everything was done at 
the word of the director ; not the least noise or wrangling was heard. 
He remarks:. 

This assemblage of one hundred and ninety criminals, robust and turbulent, seems 
to be governed with greater facility and less confusion than would bo an assemblage 
of wise and educated men in civil society. 

Eight small chambers or dungeons existed at that time for the punish¬ 
ment of refractory prisoners; but Howard found them always empty. 
He visited Ghent again in 1778. u I then saw,” he wrote, “ that the 
establishment was managed like a well-regulated manufactory. The 
prison population consisted of two hundred and eighty men and one 
hundred and seventy women. These last were engaged in making the 
clothing necessary for the house. Most of them, ranged in order, were 
spinning, knitting, or weaving, all attentive to their work and perfectly 
quiet. There was given to all, both men and women, one-fifth or their 
earnings. The specimens of cloth made there proved how much those 
are mistaken who think that no manufacture can be useful or prosper¬ 
ous which is carried on by hands imprisoned and forced to labor.’ 7 

In 1781 he found the same care, the same discipline, the same dili- 


200 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


gence, and the same progressive amelioration of tlie prisoners. There 
were two hundred and six male criminals, one hundred and six male 
delinquents, (including sturdy beggars,) and one hundred and fifty 
women, all occupied in divers manufactures or in the service of the 
establishment. The bread, soup, and meat were of good quality and in 
abundance. Everything announced the care and vigilant attention of 
the director. 

I cannot but pause here for a moment to gather up and present to 
the admiration of all who read these pages the salient features of this 
remarkable experiment, conceived, inaugurated, and carried out to a 
complete success by Viscount Vilain, certainly one of the wisest and 
most gifted statesmen who have ever contributed by the light and 
warmth of their genius to the progress of humanity. Here we find, al¬ 
ready discovered and applied a century ago, nearly all the great prin¬ 
ciples which the world even to day is but slowly and painfully seeking 
to introduce into prison management. What are they ? Reformation, 
as the supreme end to be kept in view ; hope, as the great regenerative 
force in prisons; industrial labor, as another of the vital forces to be 
employed to the same end ; religious and scholastic education and train¬ 
ing, as a third force belonging to the same category; abbreviation of 
sentence and participation in earnings as incentives to be held out to 
prisoners to diligence, good conduct, and effort at self-improvement; 
the enlistment of the will of the criminal in the work of his own moral 
regeneration—his new birth to a respect for the laws ; the introduction 
of variety of trades into prisons, and the thorough mastery by every 
prisoner of some one handicraft, as supplying the means of honest sup¬ 
port after discharge; the use of the law of love and kindness as an 
agent of prison discipline, to the exclusion, as far as possible, of the 
grosser forms of force, which act upon the will mainly through the body $ 
the utter worthlessness of short imprisonments, and the absolute neces¬ 
sity of longer terms, even for minor offenses, as the sole condition of the 
application to such offenders of reformatory processes; and the care, 
education, and industrial training of the children of the poor, and of 
other children addicted to vagrant habits, or otherwise in peril of 
falling into crime$ an anticipation, in essential features and aims, of 
the industrial school and juvenile reformatory of the present day. 

Howard revisited Ghent in 1783, but the prison was no longer what 
it had been. The Emperor, Joseph II, had yielded to the hostile rep¬ 
resentations of interested persons, who claimed that the prison labor 
offered an unjust competition with free labor outside, and had abolished 
the system of labor introduced by the Viscount Vilain and practised 
with such excellent effect. In consequence of this action of the Em¬ 
peror, the manufacture, souseful and flourishing,had been destroyed, the 
trades abandoned, the tools sold, and the noble views of the founders of 
the house were, for the time, utterly thwarted and overthrown. But un¬ 
der the fostering care of the late able inspector-general of prisons in Bel¬ 
gium, Edward JJucpetiaux, the prison of Ghent regained in great part 
its former character. 

In his seventh section M. Visschers traces briefly the progress of prison 
discipline during the last century, and gives an interesting resume of 
the prison systems of different countries at the present time. As the re¬ 
sult of this review, he thus expresses, in the closing sentences of his 
essay, his preference for what has become widely known as the Crofton 
prison system: 

Progressive classification, with gradual amelioration of the prisoner’s condition and 
augmentation of the pecuniary profits derived from his labor, has led to the discovery 


PRISON OF GHENT-DR. DESPINE’s PAPER. 


201 


of a new and fruitful principle, emulation. On one side, tlie convict dreads the conse¬ 
quences of every fault against discipline which would degrade him to a lower class ; 
and, on the other, he sees the means of gradually improving his lot and hastening, per¬ 
chance, the moment of his liberation. In the class to which he belongs, he has seen 
such and such comrades in toil, who, in recompense for their good conduct and dili¬ 
gence, have been promoted to a higher class. He says to himself that it depends upon 
his own will, upon the steadfastness of his efforts, to arrive at the same result. 

Another consideration : We have observed how much deeper is the impression made 
by the divine word upon the heart and mind of prisoners when they are associated 
in worship. The same advantage is found in associated scholastic instruction. 

But how great the difference for the convict, who must one day re-enter society, to 
have acquired the knowledge of a trade and to have labored under the ordinary con¬ 
ditions of life! It is a labor spirited, active, sustained ; while, in the cell, after a so¬ 
journ too protracted, the convict knows only sadness, depression, and somnolence, and 
loses all energy, moral and physical. If, on his return to society, he must encounter 
the rough competitions of labor, if life itself has its asperities, will he be better pre¬ 
pared for these by a long sequestration I Shall freedom be given back to him without 
any tests to show whether he is able to bear it, or worthy to obtain it ? Ought not soci¬ 
ety to exact guarantees sufficient, 1 will not say of his repentance, but of his good con¬ 
duct, and his ability to henceforth lead an honest life ? 

It is in view of the happy results promised by the system inaugurated in Ireland by 
Sir Walter Crofton, and now introduced, with modifications, into the convict-prisons of 
England, that I give it all my sympathies, considering the ideas which belong to it to 
be as wise as they are well conceived. 

The congress which is about to assemble will listen to the exposition and defense of 
all the systems. From its discussions there will Hash a living light, which will pene¬ 
trate two hemispheres, and contribute, no doubt, to elucidate questions which too 
long await a solution. I have desired to recall the point of departure, the attempts 
made, a century ago, toward the reform of prisons and the regeneration of criminals. 
The measures taken by the states of Flanders in 1771, under the inspiration of the Vis¬ 
count Vilain, for the construction of the house of correction of Ghent, were marked by 
a wisdom which cannot be misunderstood—chose measures which have borne fruits,, 
whose excellence was recognized even by contemporaries. The men who have been 
benefactors of their age and their country belong to all nations in virtue of the ties of 
a common interest which unite all the members of the great human family. Is not 
the approaching reunion of the congress about to give the most illustrious example of 
this truth ? 

Let us place side by side these two memorable dates of 1772 and 1872, which will re¬ 
call to our successors the erection of the first Penitentiary and the meeting of the great 
International Penitentiary Congress! 


NOTE. 

A paper of masterly ability and profound philosophical analysis was 
sent to the congress by Dr. Prosper Despine, of France, on the crimi¬ 
nal himself, of which only a short and imperfect abstract was printed 
in the Transactions. The undersigned thought this essay of such excep¬ 
tional value, because of its great originality and freshness, and still more 
on account of the just and practical views embodied in it and the scien¬ 
tific basis on which it seeks to build all prison management, that he 
translated and read it in the National Prison Reform Congress of Balti¬ 
more, held since the International Congress of London. As it will ap¬ 
pear in full in the proceedings of the Baltimore meeting, no further no¬ 
tice of it need be given here. 


PART FOURTH. 


RESULTS OF THE COMMISSIONER’S PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS 
AND INQUIRIES RELATING TO THE PRISONS AND REFORMA¬ 
TORIES OF EUROPE. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

Both on liis visit to Europe in 1871, to organize the Congress of Lon¬ 
don, and on that in 1872, to take part in it, the undersigned acted in a 
double capacity,being at once commissioner of the National Government 
and of the National Prison Association of the United States, and, on his 
second visit, being still further honored with a commission from the 
president of Mexico to represent the government of that country in the 
congress. He received, on the eve of his first sailing, the following 
letter of instructions from the Hon. Horatio Seymour, President of the 
National Prison Association, to wit: 


United States or America, 

New York, July 6, 1871. 

Sir: As you have been designated by the National Prison Association of the United 
States of America as their commissioner and agent to arrange the preliminaries 
of an international congress on penitentiary and reformatory discipline, which is pro¬ 
posed to be held in Europe in 1872, it becomes my duty as president of the associa¬ 
tion to convey to you the wishes of the body touching the extent and scope of the work 
required of you, as well as the manner in which you are to discharge the duties of your 
mission. You are to proceed, then, to Europe at the earliest practicable moment, in 
fulfilment of the trust with which you have been charged. 

If reforms in prison management are ever to be inaugurated, resort must sooner or 
later be had to governments, as legislation is the only means through which they can 
be effected. It has therefore been thought desirable that their co-operation in this 
work should be enlisted in advance. Hence, one of your chief duties will be to visit 
the several governments of Europe, to endeavor to awaken their interest in this pro¬ 
position, and to induce them if possible to take part in the proposed congress by duty- 
commissioned representatives. 

It is probable that the initiative of the United States in this project, and the official 
participation therein by the General Government, will smooth your path in approach¬ 
ing foreign governments, and materially aid the success of your mission. You will not 
fail to bring this point to their attention, and to press it upon their consideration as 
you have opportunity. 

Another duty required at your hands will be that of visiting, inspecting, and exam- 
ing as many of the penal and reformatory institutions of the several countries to 
which your mission shall extend as you conveniently can, in all cases carefully re¬ 
cording the results of your observations. You will also inquire into the prison 
systems of the different states of Europe, including the principles on which they are 
organized, their modes of administration and discipline, and the results accomplished 
through their agency. You will seek to secure the attendance at the congress of rep¬ 
resentatives from all the more important prisons and reformatories in each country. 

A further object to be kept in view by you will be that of conferring with boards of 
prison managers, prison discipline associations, and other organizations having in view, 
wholly or in part, the promotion of reforms in this department of social science, 
and of procuring representatives to be sent by them to take part in the deliberations 
of the congress. 

Another of your duties will be that of organizing, wherever you can, national com¬ 
mittees, who will take charge of the whole business of making the requisite prepara¬ 
tions for the congress in the several countries for which they may be appointed, and 
who will also prepare (to be read at the congress) brief memoranda setting forth the 
present state of the prison question in their respective nationalities. 



PERSONAL INSPECTION OF IRISH PRISONS. 


203 


As far as England and France are concerned,their national committees should he 
charged with tbe duty (if, as it is hoped, they are williug to assume it) of correspond¬ 
ing with the proper colonial authorities of their respective countries, and of securing 
representation from every colony subject to their authority. 

An additional duty expected of you will be that of conferring with prominent per¬ 
sons abroad in regard, first, to the proper questions to come before the congress for its 
consideration, and, secondly, the proper persons to be invited to prepare papers upon 
the topics deemed most fit and necessary to be considered by the body. The object 
here will be to prepare the w r ay for aud facilitate the formation of such a programme 
of proceedings as may be judged best adapted to the ends in view in the calling of 
such a congress as the one proposed. 

On the subjects above referred to, aud such others as your own familiarity with 
questions aud interests of this nature may suggest, you will make the broadest 
inquiries and gather the largest amount of information practicable, and will report 
fully thereon to the association on your return. 

HORATIO SEYMOUR, 

President of the Association. 

E. C. Winks, D. D., LL. D., 

Corresponding Secretarg and Commissioner of the National Prison Association. 


All the points in the foregoing letter of instructions are covered in 
previous parts of the present report, except that which makes it the 
duty of the undersigned to visit, inspect, and examine, as far as circum¬ 
stances would permit, the penal and reformatory institutions of Europe. 
To this work he was prompted as well by his own inclination as by the 
instructions of the president of the association. In obedience, then, to 
the dictates at once of choice and of duty, I personally examined, more 
or less closely, during my visits to Europe in 1871 and 1872, from fifty 
to sixty of the institutions referred to in the above-cited letter. Of these 
I propose to give, not a detailed description, for that would require 
both time aud space not at my command, but some passing notice, in 
the chapters of this fourth part of my report. 


CHAPTEB XXX. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN IRELAND. 

§ 1. Convict prisons of Ireland .—The penitentiary system, devised and 
carried iuto effect by Sir Walter Crofton in the convict-prisons of Ireland, 
has been so fully described in previous parts of this report, and has be¬ 
come in other ways so widely known, that I do not feel called upon to 
go into any cletaii upon the subject, and shall but briefly describe what 
I personally saw and heard during my visit to this now far-famed con¬ 
vict institution. 

Penal servitude in Ireland, sentence to which is never less than five 
years, is undergone in three different stages and at three separate and 
distinct establishments. The first of these establishments is at Mountjoy, 
a suburb of Dublin, and consists of two prisons—male and female ; the 
second is a public-works prison, on Spike Island, opposite Queenstown, 
at the southern extremity of Ireland, and more than a hundred 
miles distant from Dublin ; the third is at Lusk, twelve miles from 
Dublin, and is w r hat is called an intermediate prison. I spent a day at 
each of these establishments, accompanied throughout by one or the 
other of the two gentlemen composing the board of directors, viz, Mr. 
Murray or Captain Barlow—by the latter, however, everywhere, except 
at the male prison of Mountjoy. Every desirable attention was shown 



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me, and every possible facility afforded for the most thorough ex¬ 
amination of every department of the convict service. I was per¬ 
mitted everywhere to converse freely with the convicts to any ex¬ 
tent I desired, and that without the presence of the director who 
accompanied me, or any officer of the establishment; and I invited 
the confidence of the prisoners by the assurance that whatever thej^ 
communicated would be regarded as strictly confidential, and 
should not, in any event, be reported to the authorities of the 
prison. Had I chosen to continue my investigations long enough 
I might, in this manner, have conversed with every inmate of every 
prison in the Irish convict establishment. As it was, I improved my 
opportunity to the utmost that my time would permit in conversing 
with a greater or less number of convicts in each of the three stages 
into which their imprisonment is divided. For a decade of years I had 
been a diligent student of the system, devouring everything I could get 
hold of on the subject. As far as books could teach it, it is scarcely an 
exaggeration to say that I knew it by heart. And I had done what I 
could to make it known to my countrymen. In my annual reports 
as secretary of toe Prison Association of New York, in numerous short 
articles written for the daily and weekly press, in more extended essays 
published in the monthly and quarterly journals, in an exhaustive 
paper read before the American Social Science Association, in addresses 
made at public meetings in various parts of the country, and in private 
conversations without number, I had opened, explained, and coin- 
mended this system in the clearest and strongest terms I could com¬ 
mand. I had echoed and re-echoed the opinion of Italy’s greatest 
statesman, the late Count Cavour, that the fundamental principle of 
this system—progressive classification based on merit, a progressive 
withdrawal of restrait and enlargement of privilege, as they should be 
earned and warranted by the prisoner’s conduct, a gradual and almost 
imperceptible melting of prison life into the freedom of ordinary society 
through a probationary stage of natural training—that this principle, 
applied in some form, whatever the system adopted may be, is “ the 
only efficacious means of discountenancing vice and checkiug crime, by 
encouraging, through agencies purely philanthropic, the reform of the 
criminal, without, however, holding from him his just punishment.” 
And now I solemnly declare that the impressions received from pub¬ 
lished descriptions of the system have been, in the main. (I will not 
say without some modifications and abatements,) confirmed by personal 
inspection and study. 

In the two prisons at Mountjoy—first stage—I saw the prisoners con¬ 
fined in separate cells, where they were kept on coarse and low diet, and 
employed at rough and uniuteresting labor—oakum-picking and the like. 
This is the penal stage, and is intended, among other ends to be answered 
by it, to make the prisoner feel that the way of the transgressor is hard. 
Its maximum duration is nine months, which may by good conduct be 
shortened to eight. But hope is even here early planted in the prisoner’s 
breast. The utmost pains is taken to explain to the convict, in the fullest 
and clearest manner, the entire course of his imprisonment, and all the 
advantages that will accrue to him, as he advances from stage to stage 
and class to class, from good conduct, industry, diligence in study, 
and attention to his moral improvement. Not only are these things 
set before each prisoner in his cell, but once a week there is held 
a kind of catechetical exercise on the subject, in which the convicts are 
questioned as to the completeness and accuracy of their knowledge in 
regard to it. According to the answers given, all errors are corrected 
and all deficiencies supplied. The effect, even in this penal stage, I 


PERSONAL INSPECTION OF IRISH PRISONS. 


205 


found to be hope, courage, cheerfulness, and a patient waiting for prom¬ 
ised ameliorations. Indeed, these ameliorations begin during the period 
of cellular separation, and early in it. At first the seclusion is absolute. 
After a while, the cell-door is thrown open a part of the day, then all day. 
This slight approach to society is felt to be a great alleviation, and is 
withdrawn for any misconduct. From the first, the prisoners in this 
stage are together in chapel, school-room, and exercise-yard. Much 
attention is given to education and to moral and religious culture, 
wherein the “profiting” of the prisoners “appeareth unto all men,” who 
have opportunity of observing it. 

The day passed at Spike Island, where the second stage of imprison¬ 
ment under the Crofton system is passed, was one of great interest to 
me. This may be properly designated as the reformatory stage, for it 
is here that the principle of progressive classification is applied and 
exerts all its force, having no existence in either the first or third stage. 
There are four classes here, arranged in this order: third, second, first, 
and advanced or exemplary. Promotion is determined by marks, of 
which the convict can earn a maximum of nine per month, viz, three for 
general good conduct, three for industry, and three for school duties—not 
actual progress, but attention to lessons and the desire shown to im¬ 
prove. On his transfer from Mountjoy to Spike Island, the convict is 
placed in the third class ; 18 marks must be earned in order to his pro¬ 
motion from the third to the second class; 54 for promotion from the 
second to the first; and 108 for promotion from the first to the advanced 
or exemplary class. Thus the minimum time in the third class is two 
months; in the second, six; and in the first, twelve. The time neces¬ 
sary to be passed in the advanced class before removal to Lusk is not a 
fixed period, but depends upon the length of the prisoner’s sentence. 
With a five years’ sentence, he must remain in this class fourteen 
months; with a fifteen years’ sentence, he must remain five years and 
eight months; and with a sentence between these two extremes, a 
period varying with its length. I was surprised to learn that a majority 
of the convicts earn the maximum of marks, and of course secure their 
promotion from class to class, and finally their transfer to Lusk, within 
the minimum period. But hope has a quasi omnipotence. 

On the day of my visit to Spike Island, the number of prisoners was 
705, distributed as follows: advanced class, 320; first class, 200; 
second class, 101; third class, 84. The motive to strive for promotion 
is not only powerful, but it is constant, and constantly increasing in 
strength. The progress toward liberation is the great motive-power; 
but there are manifold inducements to exertion, self-denial, self-con¬ 
quest, and self-control besides this. With every advance, there is a 
lifting of restraint, an enlargement of privilege, an increase of gratuity, 
distinctive badges, better food, improved dress, greater liberty of 
action. The great effort is to induce the prisoner to become the chief 
agent in his own reformation. The authorities seem to feel that uuless 
this is done, nothing is done. The result, as I learned it from the lips of 
many prisoners with whom I conversed—all separate and apart from 
their officers—is that the entire prison population, with few exceptions, 
are putting forth constant and vigorous effort to secure their promotion 
within the minimum time; that Lusk is ever in their thought and on 
their tongue; and that the hope of attaining that coveted goal, and a 
respectable position as honest laborers beyond it, keeps up heart in 
them, and produces alacrity at work and a constant flow of good spirits. 

The men are nearly all* employed on public works—quarrying and 
dressing stone and building docks. Their work is consequently in the 


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open air, and a busy set of fellows I found them. I never saw men 
either more industrious or more cheerful in their industry. They were 
doing quite as much as any free laborers outside would have done 
at the same kind of work, and a great deal more than the free laborers 
at that time employed on the island were doing. Still I would much 
rather have seen them at trades, with a free choice, among twenty or 
more, of which they would learn. 

Mr. Hays, the active and able governor, allows any and all prisoners 
to come to him in his office at 6.30 a. m., with their burdens and griev¬ 
ances. From twelve to eighteen visit him in this way every day, and 
he allays their agitations and composes their difficulties. The effect, he 
informed me, is excellent. At 7 he holds a kind of court, at which the 
warders bring in their reports against any prisoners who may have been 
guilty, or who are by them regarded as having been guilty, of violating 
the prison rules. Of this class of cases he has some four or five every 
morning. He keeps a record of them in a book with the following 
headings: 1. Registered number of prisoner. 2. Name. 3. Date of 
report. 4. Nature of charge. 5. By whom reported. 6. Summary of 
evidence. 7. Explanation offered by prisoner. 8. Decision of gov¬ 
ernor. 9. Date of decision. 

The punishments here are chiefly of a moral kind : loss of marks, for¬ 
feiture of gratuities, withdrawal oi‘ privileges, change of badge, degra¬ 
dation to a lower class, remanding to the cellular prison at Mountjoy, 
to which may be added (as punishments occasionally employed) depri¬ 
vation of a meal, close confinement on bread and water, and even, in 
aggravated cases, the lash, which, I trust, will soon be banished in 
scccnla sceculorum. 

The day I passed at Lusk was a day of mingled wonder and delight. 
This is the intermediate prison, so called because it holds a middle 
ground between an imprisonment strictly penal and the enjoyment of 
full liberty. The aim of the intermediate prison is twofold : first, to test 
the reality of the convict’s reformation, his power of self-government, 
his ability to withstand temptation; and, secondly, to train him for a 
considerable period—never less than six months—under natural condi¬ 
tions, and so to prepare him for full freedom on discharge by the enjoy¬ 
ment of partial freedom as a preliminary step. Accordingly, the impris¬ 
onment here is little more than moral. 

I had known this part of the Irish convict-system, as I had the others, 
from books. My expectations regarding it were high, but they were 
more than met. Indeed, I have never elsewhere seen anything to com¬ 
pare with the results shown here. The intermediate prison which for¬ 
merly existed at Smithfield, in the outskirts of Dublin, has been given 
up, and all intermediate prisoners are now sent to Lusk. The number, 
on the day of my visit, was fifty-seven; the usual number is a little in 
excess of that figure. 

Farm-work is the only industry from which income is received, and 
the cash revenue from this source, over and above the value of the pro¬ 
ducts used in the establishment, amounts (at least such is my under¬ 
standing of the matter) to about $10,009, which makes the institution 
well-nigh self-supporting. The farm contains nearly 200 acres. Prior 
to the establishment of the prisou, this land was a common, wild and 
uncultivated. The whole of it has now been subdued, and brought 
under successful and profitable tillage. The value of the land has in¬ 
creased under the labor of the prisoners, from 10s. to £5 per acre. 
There is a large annual hay-crop gathered; wheat, oats, and barley 
are grown in considerable quantities, but the principal products 


PERSONAL INSPECTION OF IRISH PRISONS. 


207 


are potatoes, cabbages, turnips, celery, and other vegetables. It was 
the 14th of October when I was there, and the prisoners were at 
work on various parts of the farm, digging esculents, hauling and 
spreading lime, and performing other kinds of farm-labor; and a 
half dozen or more were engaged in the construction of a stone 
dwelling for the superintendent, in place of the iron hut which at 
that time served him for a residence. Everywhere they were as busy as 
bees, and, to all appearance, as happy. I never saw a brisker or more 
cheerful set of laborers. Theyiaccomplish fully as much work as an 
equal number of free hands. Indeed, the farmers of the neighborhood 
aver that they would be glad to get men who would work as well. For 
the most part they work in groups, and have a warder to overseer them, 
who is, however, at the same time, a fellow-laborer with them. But 
this is not always the case. Often they work alone, or in companies of 
two or three, without any one in charge, on the most distant parts of 
the farm. As far as appears to the view, there is no more imprison¬ 
ment here than on any other farm. There are no walls, no bars, 
no bolts, no gratings, no apparent confinement of any kind. The doors 
of the iron tents which serve them as dormitories are locked at night, 
just as our own houses are when we retire. The only difference, as far as 
I could see, between this and any other large farm employing a great 
many hands, was that here a warder slept in a small room at the end of 
the large dormitory of the convicts. 

In the afternoon I walked about the farm, mingled freely with the 
convict laborers, and talked with quite a number of them entirely apart 
from the officers. Their uniform testimony, the truth of which was at¬ 
tested by their whole tone and bearing, was to this effect: That the hope 
held out to them of constantly bettering their condition by their own 
exertions was, throughout the whole course of their imprisonment, a 
powerful stimulus to good conduct, industry, and exactness in the dis¬ 
charge of all their duties; that the intermediate prison was the goal to¬ 
ward which they had been constantly aiming, the object of incessant desire 
and effort; that at Lusk they never heard any plotting of future crimes^ 
that, on the contrary, all the talk of the men in that prison, when the time 
of their liberation was drawing nigh, was as to where they would go, 
what they would do, what wages they might be able to obtain, and how 
they could win honest bread and an honorable position; that a profane 
or obscene expression was scarcely ever heard there; and that if such a 
thing chanced to occur, as it sometimes did, it was instantly frowned 
down and put a stop to by the prisoners themselves. Yet there is no 
restraint upon conversation at Lusk more than there is among the labor¬ 
ers on any large farm or other well-regulated industrial establishment. 
Lusk has'now been nearly twenty years open for the reception and treat¬ 
ment of intermediate prisoners, with opportunities of evasion, such as 
no other prison in the world oilers, and yet scarcely have a dozen at¬ 
tempts at escape been made. The whole vicinage was in terror at the 
announcement that a prison without walls or bolts was to be established 
on Lusk Common; yet only one complaint, in all these years, has been 
made against the prisoners who have found a home there. That hap¬ 
pened on this wise: There is no chapel on Lusk farm, and the prisoners 
attend the parish church on Sunday in a body. On one occasion a pris¬ 
oner, in leaving the church at the close of the service, addressed a pass¬ 
ing remark to a young woman at his side. There was no pretense that 
the word spoken was in itself an improper word. The complaint was 
that he spoke to her. There is no discipline at Lusk; no punishments 
are administered there any more than on a farm or in a manufacturing 
establishment where free laborers are employed. The prisoner was, 


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therefore, sent back to Mountjoy, from which, after a month’s u separate 
and solitary confinement,” he was restored to his place on -the prison- 
farm, and neither before nor since has complaint been made by any 
human being against the inmates of the intermediate establishment, a 
fact, to my mind, trulj^ marvelous. 

During my visit, the entire prison population was called in from their 
work to allow me to see them in their school, and especially to witness 
one of those competitive examinations, conducted by the prisoners them¬ 
selves, which became so marked a feature of the intermediate prisons 
under the late Mr. Organ. As the men came in, there was nobody in 
the room but myself, not a single officer being present; yet so quietly 
did each prisoner enter, go to his own desk or table, take out his book 
and commence his studies, that, if my eyes had been closed, I should 
scarcely have supposed that a half dozen persons were in the room ; 
certainly I could not have dreamed that nearly sixty men had entered. 
Not a word was spoken ; not a disorderly or even playful act was done; 
nor was there the least confusion or noise of any sort. The men were 
arrayed in two long rows on either side of the room, and, under the 
superintendence of the school-master, the two sides put questions alter¬ 
nately to each other. The exercise was an interesting one, but less so 
than I had anticipated. It had somewhat the appearance of being, as 
we say, “cut and dried.” Mr. Organ is dead, and his successor, in the 
lecture department, has not yet been found. Speaking of Mr. Organ, 
who, for a dozen years or more, held the double office of superin¬ 
tendent of discharged convicts and lecturer to the intermediate prisons 
of Lusk and Smithfield, I cannot close my brief account of the visit 
made in 1871 to the convict-prisons of Ireland without citing a few sen¬ 
tences from one of the last reports, if not indeed the very last, made by 
him before his lamented death. He says : 

Crime is fast disappearing in Dublin. Old and habitual thieves are becoming honest 
and industrious citizens, while homes, which have hitherto been the scenes of vice and 
poverty, are now replaced by those of morality and plenty. 

Employers continue to repose confidence in my men, and the demand for them has 
at times exceeded the supply. 

The moral tone of the institution is most satisfactory. There is an entire absence 
of even the slightest tendency to immorality, whether in word or act; and should hy¬ 
pocrisy show itself in a new-comer, it is promptly detected, and as promply censured 
by the public opinion of the men in the huts./ 

I cannot speak too highly of the charming effects which farm-labor has produced, 
even upon the most sluggish criminals, nor of its happy results on even the cool and cal¬ 
culating adept in crime, on whose brow the honest drop of sweat had never before 
trickled. 

I am ready to stake my reputation on the fact, proved in innumerable instances, that 
the most indolent criminal can be trained to honest and independent toil, not so much 
through fear or coercion, as through the influence of hope and encouragement. 

Truly Lusk is a magnificent triumph of reason and humanity over coer¬ 
cion and brute force—a splendid and irrefragable testimony to the sound¬ 
ness of the penitentiary system which the genius of Sir Walter Crofton 
has given to the world. 

§ 2. Juvenile reformatories of Ireland .—Ireland is now well supplied 
with this class of institutions, both Catholic and Protestant. Only one 
of them, however, was visited by me; and to that I shall confine my 
remarks, which, for the rest, will be very brief. I was accompanied by 
Mr. John Lentaigne, the intelligent and amiable inspector of reforma¬ 
tories for Ireland, and two other gentlemen, friends of his. The insti¬ 
tution visited is the St. Kevin’s reformatory, for the treatment of de¬ 
linquent Catholic boys exclusively, and is the largest of the kind in 

*Mr. Organ refers here to the two iron tents at Lusk, erected at a cost of only $3 000 
each of which is, nevertheless, capable of accommodating fifty convicts. 




PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS IN ENGLAND. 209 

Ireland, having an average of more than three hundred inmates. It is 
distant ten miles from Dublin, the road ascending nearly all the way, 
and at a pretty steep grade, as the reformatory is 1,800 feet above the 
level of the sea. It is situated at the head of a romantic and picturesque 
glen, called Glencree, or the Valley of the Heart. The name is most 
appropriate, as being significant of the spirit of love and kindness in 
which such institutions should be conducted. But, for all that, the 
place has not, in my judgment, been well chosen. The soil is of the 
worst possible description, the greater part of the one hundred acres 
rented for the use of the establishment being utterly irreclaimable and 
worthless ; and even on the forty or fifty acres that have been brought 
under tillage by the labor of the boys, little will grow except grass. 
The cold in winter is often intense and the storms terrific. It is but a 
few years ago that a juvenile convict, on his way to the reformatory, 
was frozen to death before reaching it. All supplies for the institution 
have to be hauled on carts or wagons ten miles up a mountain, and 
all manufactured articles, seeking a market, the same distance down it. 
Yet, despite all these disadvantages and drawbacks, the Glencree re¬ 
formatory is doing good work. Father Fox, born and reared in the 
Quaker faith, (and none the worse for that,) is at the head of it; and he 
impressed me as being—if I may be allowed a hackneyed but expressive 
phrase—pre-eminently “the right man in the right place.” At all 
events, he and his indefatigable corps of assistants have shown them¬ 
selves greatly successful as regards the main purpose of their work. If 
the acres on which the boys are placed have proved, in large measure, 
irreclaimable, the case of the boys themselves has been quite different. 
Ninety per cent, of these are reformed, and, on their liberation, become 
a constituent part of the industrious and honest yeomanry of the 
country. That tells the whole story more eloquently than I could; and 
all further words may be spared. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN ENGLAND. 

§ 1. English prisons— In the course gf my two visits to England I had 
opportunity to examine more or less thoroughly four convict-prisons 
and some ten or twelve county and borough jails. Compelled to study, 
in what remains of my report, a rigid economy of both time and space, I 
can give to these establishments only the most cursory notice—far less, 
indeed, than either their merits demand, or my own feelings w ould prompt. 
There is much in the English prisons and the English penitentiary 
system to be admired, commended, and imitated; but there are, also, as 
I conceive, things in them to be criticized and avoided; things, too, 
which belong to the very core and essence of a just and especially a re¬ 
formatory prison discipline. 

The prison buildings in England, as a rule, are substantial structures 
of stone or brick, on the radiating plan, well proportioned and pleasing 
to the eye, with a lofty tower attached, for purposes of ventilation ; the 
grounds are handsomely laid out in parterres and gravelled walks, and 
many of them'ornamented v r itli flowers, vines, and shrubbery; halls, run¬ 
ning through the center of each wing, are lighted from the top, and the 
light is so disposed as to produce a soft and cheerful effect; the cells are 
spacious, airy, and w r ell lighted, each having a water-closet, gas-burner, 
H. Ex. 185-14 



210 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


and bell-pull, with an iron card attached to it by a spring, which starts 
out from the wall on the ringingof the bell, and each is also provided with 
all needful furniture; the long galleries, tier above tier, impart a feeling 
of perfect adaptation to their special object, which is far from unpleas¬ 
ing; the chapels are generally of ample dimensions, of gothic architec¬ 
ture, with groined roofs, always neatly and sometimes beautifully 
arranged, and well suited to pVoduce a solemn and soothing effect upon 
the prisoners; an extraordinary cleanliness reigns throughout—in cells, 
corridors, offices, everywhere—and one is particularly struck with the 
brightness of the brass-fittings and the polish of the metal stair-cases ; 
the hospital accommodations are excellent, the wards being well arranged 
for the treatment of different classes of disease, and all the appointments 
adapted to the convenience, comfort, and cure of the patients; the venti¬ 
lation, drainage, and all other sanitary arrangements are the best that 
science can supply; the discipline is exact, and is rigidly enforced; 
obedience is prompt, and order and decorum everywhere observed; and 
there is a certain charm in the symmetry, harmony, and clock-like regu¬ 
larity of the whole, which takes away, at least from the first view, the 
awe and horror anticipated by the inexperienced observer. 

Such, in brief, and without any attempt to exhaust the attractions of 
the picture, is the bright side of the English prisons, whether convict, 
county, or borough. But, unhappily, there is a per contra. While the 
material efficiency of these prisons is certainly very high, the moral 
action seemed to me feeble. While the avowed end of all prison au¬ 
thorities—or nearly all—is “ reformation,” it appeared to me doubtful 
whether they fully appreciated what that work demands. The whole 
aim and instinct are for material efficiency. Hence—so it seemed to my 
apprehension—the shell is preferred to the kernel; the forms are made 
of more account than the substance. Hence, too, reformatory disci¬ 
pline is, to far too great an extent, made secondary to punitory inflic¬ 
tions. Consequently the men chosen for officers—though, as a class, 
superior, I freely admit, to the same class among us—are often not of 
the sort required for the work to be done. They are too artificial, keep 
the prisoners too much at arm’s length, rely too exclusively on author¬ 
ity, have too little faith in the susceptibility of criminals to reforma¬ 
tory agencies, and hence work but feebly—and, as a consequence, with 
little effect—to that end. In a word, they are not such—at least the 
greater part are not—as can subdue, control, and change the prisoners 
by moral influence. Though the governors are generally men of ability, 
character, and culture, all are not such. Some are unfit for their posts. 
There should therefore be some means devised for testing the deserving 
among these and other officers; some mode adopted whereby rewards 
and preferments may be given to the meritorious, and the unfit and un¬ 
worthy removed from their offices. 

Too little account, speaking generally, (there are honorable excep¬ 
tions,) is made in English prisons of industrial and skilled work; too 
much of wasted labor, in its many forms. Tread-mill, crank, shot- 
drill, stone-breaking, and costly usages of that sort prevail, and the 
reasons assigned for their use are apt to be given in such catch-words 
as these: “Ancient prestige,” “ nothing to be learned from theorists,” 
“ practical men,” “ not presume to be wiser than our forefathers,” 
u productive work inj urious to honest outsiders,” &c. I am sorry to differ 
from some most excellent English friends, (though, I am glad to add, 
supported by a host of others.) but I altogether disapprove of mere 
penal and unproductive industry as irritating and brutalizing to pris¬ 
oners. The introduction of trades, as many as possible, coupled with 


PERSONAL INSPECTION OF ENGLISH PRISONS. 


211 


longer sentences in the country and borough prisons, seems to me at 
the present moment a great want in England. Special prisons might, 
perhaps, be usefully employed for special trades. I should think it most 
desirable to multiply trades, so as to insure, as far as possible, that 
every prisoner should learn a way of getting his bread according to his 
turn ; and to this turn the aptitudes and tastes of individuals should be 
particularly studied. Some liberty of cfioice should be given in this 
matter, even to prisoners ; it would be a great step toward the restora¬ 
tion of their manhood. An incidental advantage of the multiplication 
of trades would be that it would tend to stop the mouth of those who 
complain of the competition of prison labor with free labor, though really 
there is scarcely enough in that argument to merit a refutation of any 
kind. But for its practical effect on prisons and prisoners, it might be 
given to the winds. 

Scholastic education in English prisons receives more or less atten¬ 
tion ; in the government or convict prisons, much care is given to it. 
But everywhere it needs a broader development, a higher activity. 

Twenty years ago boys were mixed with men in the English prisons, 
and came out old knaves, skilled, theoretically, in all the devices of 
practised villainy. This is no longer so. But the principle of pro¬ 
gressive classification, by which prisoners, on the ground of merit, are 
advanced from stage to stage, with constantly diminished restrictions 
and constantly enlarged privileges and comforts, is not widely applied 
in county and borough goals.; nor, indeed, can it be, until the principle 
of cumulative sentences is incorporated in the penal code. In the con¬ 
vict establishments, known as public-works prisons, progressive classi¬ 
fication exists; but promotion is earned by industry alone, all other 
qualities and efforts being thrown out of the account; a grave mistake, 
in my judgment; though in part repaired by a forfeiture of marks for 
misconduct. 

Voluntary and unofficial visitation, for moral and reformatory ends, 
by competent and discreet persons, is not admitted in English prisons 
of any class. In this respect England has made progress backward in 
these later years. Even Latimer, in a sermon preached before Edward 
VI, lifted up his voice for this : u I would ye would resort to prisons,” 
he exclaimed, u a commendable thing in a Christian realm. It is holy- 
day work to visit the prisoners.” In Elizabeth’s reign, Bernard Gilpin, 
not as chaplain, but as a volunteer worker, regularly visited all the jails 
that fell within the range of his missionary circuits in the northern 
counties. Very soon after the organization of the Christian Knowl¬ 
edge Society, in 1699, a “ committee of prisons” was appointed, who 
visited, exhorted, and distributed religious books to the prisoners of 
Kewgate, Marslialsea, and other London prisons, and sent packages of 
their books to all the county jails in the kingdom. The members of the 
“ Godly Club,” embracing the Wesleys, Whitefield, and their most 
zealous followers, visited unofficially, preached, prayed, and distributed 
books and alms in all the prisons within their circuits, and continued 
the practice till compelled by the authorities to desist from this part of 
their labors. At a later day, John Howard, Elizabeth Erv, Sarah Mar¬ 
tin, and many other excellent men and women, less known to fame, but 
no less zealous or worthy, became volunteer visitors in prisons, to the 
abundant advantage of England and the world; insomuch that England, 
to-day, may be fitly exhorted, in the words of the Hebrew prophet, to 
u search for the old paths, and walk therein.” I do not think that the clergy 
ought to be the only teachersof prisoners. Competentpersons ofboth sexes 
should, under fit restrictions, be admitted, when they are willing, to share 
his work with them. Especially women—intelligent, discreet, and 


212 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


sweetly-mannered women—should be encouraged to visit prisons and 
to bring their magnetic influence to bear on the improvement and re¬ 
formation of the prisoners. 

Another defect in the penitentiary administration of England: the 
will-power of the prisoners is not adequately developed and invigorated. 
Fifty years’ experience of men, fifty years’ work among men, have im¬ 
pressed upon my mind only one idea. It is that nothing can be done 
with them except through the will. The will can be reached only through 
the intelligence and the heart. For this, first, religion, in all its freedom, 
purity, and power, is necessary; and, secondly, in the case of prisoners, 
progressive classification, whereby the ordinary motives which control 
men in free society, and urge them to industry and virtue, may act 
steadily and effectively upon these also, determining to good the choices 
of their will, and so the actions of their life. 

One further point in a way of criticism : I refer to the want of unity 
in the county and borough jail system. Every jail in England is inde¬ 
pendent of every other. The little discrimination exercised in the 
treatment of prisoners struck me as a great defect. There seems only 
one medicine for all the diseases. Even in the employment of the 
tread mill, on which no prisoner can be placed except by express author¬ 
ization of the medical officer of the prison, and where, therefore, uni¬ 
formity might be looked for if anywhere, the usages are exceedingly 
different. In some jails the working hours on this machine are six and 
a half per day; in others, eight and three-quarters. In some the 
velocity per minute is thirty-six steps; in others, forty-eight. And the 
number of feet ascended daily varies from 7,800 to 21,000 ! In other 
departments of the administration the differences are no less, ilow, I 
do not object to local government within reasonable limits; on the con¬ 
trary, I favor it strongly, believing it essential to a living, energetic, 
effective administration. At the same time I hold, with equal strength 
of conviction, that the penal system of a country should be a unit; that 
there should be, in each, some central authority, having, within due 
bounds, (for in this, as in other departments of the public service, 
there may be an excess of centralization,) the oversight and control of 
all institutions, whether of a penal or reformatory character, looking to 
the prevention and repression of crime. On this condition alone, it 
seems to me, can there be secured that skillful adaptation to each other 
of the several i>arts of the system which is necessary to the harmonious 
and efficient action of the whole. 

I do not propose a description of particular prisons, but will make a 
passing reference to one or two of them which offer favorable points. 
The Devenport prison, of which Mr. Edwards is governor, is one of 
these. It has an average of seventy prisoners. The labor is chiefly 
industrial. From cocoa-nut fiber, costing £2 sterling per ton, the pris¬ 
oners manufacture textiles worth £15. The prisoners work in associa¬ 
tion; there is no separation, except at night. In four years there have 
been but two recommittals—a pretty strong proof that industrial labor 
is not inferior to penal labor in deterrent effect. There has not been 
an infirmary case in the last four years. 

The Wakefield prison, West Hiding, Yorkshire, is admirably organ¬ 
ized and managed by its energetic governor, Captain Armytage. The 
encircling wall, which is of hewn stone, massive and lofty, incloses 
eighteen acres of ground, which are almost wholly covered with the 
numerous buildings belonging to the establishment. The average num¬ 
ber of prisoners is about twelve hundred, of whom nearly one-sixth are 
women. The Wakefield jail is conspicuous among the prisons of Eng- 


AID TO DISCHARGED PRISONERS. 


213 


land for the zeal and success with which industrial labor is carried on 
in it. In this respect it is quite a counterpart to our American prisons, 
presenting in every part a scene of busy toil. I believe it is nearly, if 
not quite, self-sustaining, and I think it has no tread-mill; but my notes 
are silent on both points, and my recollection is not perfectly clear on 
either. The prison is built on the separate plan, which is carried out 
to a certain extent; but the exigencies of the labor system adopted have 
made great inroads upon that principle. In effect, the prison is conducted 
much more upon the Auburn than the Philadelphia system. Numerous 
trades are carried on here, being required to meet the wants of so vast 
an establishment; but the only industry which brings in a money rev¬ 
enue is the manufacture of mats and matting. Of these the amount pro¬ 
duced is enormous. The chief market is the United States, particularly 
New York and San Francisco, the great carpet-house of the Messrs. 
Sloane, in the former of these cities, being purchasers to the extent of 
something like $25,000 annually. The prison has a cash capital of 
$100,000, all derived from the earnings of the prisoners. 

§ 2. Aid to discharged, prisoners—the refuges at Wakefield .—Liberated 
prisoners in England are helped in their efforts to reform mainly by aid 
societies ; but two of the most interesting establishments in the world, 
instituted in this view, exist in connection with the Wakefield prison. 
One of these is a refuge for male prisoners discharged from the estab¬ 
lishment, and the other a home, similar in design and character, for the 
females. The chance here afforded, through these refuges or homes, to 
every released prisoner, male or female, who desires to reform and eat 
honest bread, is beyond all praise. In the male refuge, at the time of 
my visit in 1871, there were accommodations for forty inmates, but they 
could, at any time, be readily enlarged so as to admit a considerable 
number more. The inmates are furnished with good board ; clean and 
well-aired dormitories ; a bed consisting of iron bedstead, a first-quality 
hair-mattress, three sheets, two pillow-cases, two dark blankets, one 
white coverlet, and a box serving at once as a trunk and a seat; a night- 
school every evening; a preaching service and Sunday-school on the Sab¬ 
bath; a well-selected miscellaneous library; a reading-room, provided 
with daily and weekly journals, &c., all at an average rate of 7s. 2d. 
sterling per capita a week. They work at mat-making, and their 
average weekly earnings are from eleven to twelve shillings. They 
do piece-work at rates a little less than those usually paid, because 
the refuge is not designed to afford permanent employment, but merely 
to bridge over the chasm between the prison and steady remunera¬ 
tive labor. This chance* is given to every man released from the 
Wakefield prison v r ho desires it, and its benefits are fully explained to 
all during their incarceration, so that not a solitary person, discharged 
from that prison, can ever come back to it under the pretext that he 
could get no work to do. Is not that noble 1 Why may not all large 
penal establishments organize something of the same kind ? 

The home for discharged female prisoners is managed upon the same 
general principles, but the women are not able to earn a full support. 
The income from their work has to be supplemented by private bene¬ 
factions. They are accommodated in a new and spacious mansion, built 
expressly for the purpose, admirably planned, and provided with all 
needful appointments. 

§ 3. Mrs. Meredith's Wash-house .—Among the almost innumerable 
charities of London there is one of a very peculiar character, called 
the Prison Mission, which is as praiseworthy as it is original. It was 
devised seven or eight years ago by the lady whose name stands in the 


214 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY' CONGRESS. 

caption of this section, and who is well known in England as one of the 
most energetic and efficient workers in behalf of discharged female 
prisoners in that country. The work of the mission is divided into 
four branches, of which two only will be noticed—and that all too 
briefly—in this report. 

One of these aims is to assist and save prisoners discharged from the 
London House of Correction for Women. The ladies of the mission have 
hired two small rooms near the gate of the prison, where some of them 
are in attendance every morning at the hour when those who have served 
out their time are discharged, to capture (if that word is admissible in 
a good sense) as many of the women who have been set free as they 
can persuade to try a better way of life. They give them a hot cup of 
tea, with a piece of bread and cheese, read a portion of scripture and 
offer prayer on their behalf, and explain to them their benevolent in¬ 
tentions and the advantages to be gained from yielding to their persua¬ 
sions. They succeed in their endeavors with a few of the multitude of 
wretched outcasts who daily emerge from those prison-walls. But 
what do they do with and for those whom they have won ? They have 
established an immense laundry, where the clothing and bedding of the 
poorest and foulest dwellers in the crowded dens of London are washed 
by these liberated convicts at a cost considerably below what they could do 
it for themselves. Scores and hundreds of these poor creatures are lifted 
up and restored to the walks of honest industry through this unique 
and wonderful agency. The women come at 8 in the morning and leave 
at 7 in the evening, having an hour’s intermission at mid-day. They 
bring their own dinners, but are provided with a free tea, and receive a 
shilling a day for their work. Every afternoon, at 4, they are assem¬ 
bled in the chapel, when a chapter is read and prayer offered; and 
every Sunday evening, at 7 o’clock, a special service is held, to which 
all are invited ; the gospel is preached, and each is afforded, if she will 
accept, the refreshment of a cup of tea. What a noble charity! It 
gives work to those whom none are willing to employ. It pays wages 
to those who are forbidden by many barriers to seek their livelihood 
elsewhere. It affords them the opportunity, while earning bread, to 
earn also an honest fame, and to secure ultimately, which nearly all 
do, better work and higher pay. At the same time, it is a charity which 
has another aspect, scarcely less important or beneficent, in enabling the 
lowest class of the London poor to secure clean clothing and bedding at 
the cheapest possible rate—Gd. per dozen pieces. 

The other branch of the prison mission-work, to which reference will 
here be made, is of a preventive character. It aims to save the children 
of criminals from the paths trodden by their parents. The ladies have 
established a village of cottages, each cottage containing accommoda¬ 
tions for ten children, who are placed under the care of an adoptive 
mother. This settlement is called “ Princess Mary’s Village,” that lady, 
now the Duchess of Teck, having taken the work under her especial 
patronage. At present there are ten cottages clustering around a neat 
little church and school-house. The intention is to enlarge the village 
as rapidly as circumstances will permit, until the number of cottages 
reaches thirty, thus providing for three hundred children. 

§ 4. The Carlisle Memorial Refuge for Women .—The assistance given to 
liberated male prisoners in England is almost wholly through aid socie¬ 
ties. Not so, however, with female prisoners. Indeed, societies would 
not, for them, meet the necessities of the case. It is far more difficult 
for women than for men to obtain situations immediately on their re¬ 
lease from prison. Consequently they need to have provided some 


AID *T0 DISCHARGED PRISONERS. 


215 


place in which their good resolutions maybe tested, and some guarantee 
given for their continued good conduct, before families will be willing 
to receive them into permanent employment. Hence, those women who 
so elect, if their prison character has been such as to warrant the indul¬ 
gence, are allowed to pass the six months immediately preceding the 
term of their release in refuges established and managed by private ef¬ 
fort, but assisted by contributions from the government. Here they 
enjoy the advantages of a treatment approaching that of home influence, 
for those establishments are not prisons, either in appearance or dis¬ 
cipline—they are homes. There are now three refuges for female convicts, 
the Carlisle Memoral Refuge, at Winchester ; the Eagle House Refuge, 
at Hammersmith, for Roman Catholics, and the Westminster Memorial 
Refuge, lately established at Streatham. One hundred and seventeen 
women passed through these refuges in 1871 out of a total of two hun¬ 
dred and seventy-live who were discharged from sentences of penal 
servitude. The number availing themselves of the advantages they 
offer has heretofore been limited, for want of accommodation ; but the 
establishment of the last-mentioned refuge at Streatham has prevented 
the possibility of their suffering this disadvantage again. 

Of these, the only one which 1 visited in the summer of 1871 was the 
Carlisle Memorial Refuge, at Winchester, at that time under the general 
direction of Sir Walter Crofton. I was much pleased with the institu¬ 
tion, which, from its reports and from what Sir Walter told me, has 
been very successful in saving from a return to crime the class for whom 
it is designed. The superintendent, Miss Pumfrey, seemed admirably 
fitted for her place. Lady Crofton, 1 found, took an active interest in 
the refuge, spending three hours there daily in keeping the books and 
conducting the correspondence. The number of inmates was about sixty, 
which, I think, is not far from the average. Much pains is taken to 
keep track of the women after they leave the refuge. Here is a speci¬ 
men of the record kept of each : 

-, discharged August 9, 1867. Same date, went as servant at 14 Queen 

square, London. February, 1869, left with a good character, and went as housemaid 
in Grove street, No. 104. January, 1870, went as housemaid in Birmingham. May 16, 

1870, doing well in same place. July, 1870, in same place; wages raised; visited by 
Miss Pumfrey. November 25, 1870, doing well in same place. Same in January, 1871. 
Same in June and July, 1871, at which latter date she was receiving £18 a year. 

The sentiments cherished toward the refuge by those who have en¬ 
joyed and appreciated its advantages are well expressed in a letter ad¬ 
dressed to Miss Pumfrey by this same person, under date of June 6, 

1871. The original now lies before me, and I take from it the following- 
sentences : 

Dear Miss Pumfrey : 46 * * Will you please write to me soon ? I 

do want to hear how you are, for I can never forget you, dear Miss Pumfrey, never. 
You did say, please, miss, you would give me one of your portraits. Will you 
please send me one, if you have one to spare, so that I may place it beside dear Mrs. 
Bradstock ? How is that dear lady* and family ? Hope they, with yourself, are 
well. May the Lord God Almighty ever bless you both for the many hearts you have 
saved and made happy from trouble. Dear Miss Pumfrey, how are all the women go¬ 
ing on ? I hope they do not give you much trouble. Please remember me to those 
that know me, and tell them I am still quite happy, and also tell them that the 
path of honesty, righteousness, and truth is the path that leads to happiness; and I 
pray that many, many 1 more souls maybe brought to Jesus—yea, that all may be 
brought to Jesus—as dear Mrs. Barton used to say, “ one and all.” “ Him that cometh 
unto me I will in no wise cast out.” Precious words! Onward, homeward, upward, 
heavenward. Good-bye. God bless you. 

From your humble friend, 


* Referring to Lady Crofton. 







216 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY &ONGRESS. 


§ 5. English reformatories .—These have been, both in their principles 
and workings, so fully described in preceding parts of this report, that 
I do not think it necessary to enter into further detail upon the subject. 
A considerable number of them were visited in different parts of the 
kingdom, one or two of which I had intended to describe, particularly 
Miss Carpenter’s Red Lodge Girls’ Reformatory, at Bristol, a model in¬ 
stitution in all respects, especially in its intermediate department; and 
the girls’ reformatory, at Hampstead, London, under the care of Miss 
USTicoll, which, in neatness, thoroughness, order, and efficiency, moral 
and material, struck me as one of the best-organized and best-managed 
institutions of the kind I had ever met with on either side of the At¬ 
lantic. But I forbear. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN SWITZ¬ 
ERLAND. 

§1. The prisons of Switzerland .—I visited five penitentiaries in Swit¬ 
zerland, viz, at Geneva, Berne, Zurich, Lenzbourg, and Xeufchatel. The 
tendency of public opinion in this little republic is strongly in the direc¬ 
tion of the Crofton prison system in its fundamental principle—that of 
progressive classification, with gradual withdrawal of restraint and 
enlargement of privilege, as these are earned by industry, good con¬ 
duct, and manifest and successful effort on the part of the prisoner 
toward self-conquest and self-control. However, the first two of the 
penitentiaries named above—those at Geneva and Berne—are quite an 
exception to this rule. 1 shall attempt no description of them further 
than to say that they appeared to me deficient in most of the essential 
qualities of good prisons. Each of them maybe pronounced a discredit 
to the city which provides no more suitable plan for the treatment of 
its criminals, to whatever extent they may have offended against the 
laws. If, as I hope, the next international prison reform congress shall 
be held in Switzerland, it will become these two ancient and renowned 
cities to bestir themselves in the erection and organization of prisons 
more worthy of themselves and their country, and more in harmony with 
the progressive spirit of the age in the matter of penitentiary discipline. 

On the other hand, the penitentiaries of Zurich, Lenzbourg, and Neuf- 
chatel which I visited, and, as I was informed, those of St. Gall, Bale- 
ville, Tessin, and perhaps some others, are in a satisfactory condition. 
Into all of them, I think, has been introduced, in different degrees and 
with various modifications, the progressive Grofton penitentiary system. 

The penitentiary at Zurich is under the care of Mr. Wegmann as di- f 
rector, who is a most excellent person, with advanced ideas, thoroughly 
devoted to his work, and intent on improving the mental and moral 
state of his prisoners. The prison building is an old Dominican con¬ 
vent, of large dimensions, built in the middle ages, massive and strong. 
It has been altered and accommodated to its present uses. Xaturally it 
is irregular in structure and arrangements; but it is well kept, clean 
and pure in every part. The average number of inmates falls but little 
short of 250; at the time of ray visit there were 210. It is organized 
and conducted on the progressive plan. There are three classes. In 
the lowest class, there were GO the day I was there; in the second, 128;. 
and in the third, or highest, 12. Prisoners in the lowest class are in 
cellular confinement night and day ; those in the other two are in sepa¬ 
ration only at night. The minimum of cellular imprisonment is three 



PERSONAL INSPECTION OF SWISS PRISONS. 217 

months 5 the maximum, six months. Privileges are increased as they are 
earned. Ten to fifteen, trades are carried on here. Prisoners who were 
artisans prior to their commitment work, when possible, at the trades 
which they had previously practised. Prisoners ignorant of a trade when 
committed are allowed to choose from among those practised in the prison 
the one they prefer. The prison has a chaplain, who devotes his whole 
time to the duties of his office. This officer had died the week before my 
visit, and no successor had been appointed. The late incumbent acted as 
schoolmaster as well as chaplain; but hereafter this office will be sep¬ 
arated from the chaplaincy; and the schoolmaster, like the chaplain, 
will give his whole strength to liis own work, that of secular or scholastic 
instruction. 

The canton of Zurich has a new criminal code, of rare simplicity and 
excellence, the work, largely, of the distinguished Professor D’Orelli, 
in whose society and that of a few other cultivated gentlemen I had the 
honor to pass an evening, greatly to my profit as well as delight. 

The penitentiary of Lenzbourg, in the canton of Argovie, has been 
built within the last few years. It is admirably arranged in all respects, 
and provided w ith every convenience and facility for the effective treat 
inent of criminal men and women. Both its construction and organ¬ 
ization are due to the zeal and energy of the late president of the 
confederation, Mr. Welti, a gentleman of marked ability, wisdom, and 
philanthropy, whom I found at the executive office in the national cap- 
itol, and ready to receive visitors at 8 o’clock in the morning, earlier, I 
think, than any other ruler in the world. The director of the peniten¬ 
tiary is Mr. Victor Hfirlin, whose installation had but recently taken 
place. We were, therefore, shown through the establishment by the 
sub-director, wdio has been many years in office, and who impressed me 
as a man of great intelligence and efficiency. The prison I found, through¬ 
out, in excellent condition, and altogether an admirable institution. On 
the day of my visit, there v r ere two hundred and three prisoners, of 
whom thirty-three were women. It is managed on the Orofton system, 
with the inmates divided into three classes. The duration of cellular 
imprisonment here is quite elastic. It has a maximum, but no mini¬ 
mum limit. The maximum is a year, but within that period the director 
can transfer a prisoner from the separate to the associated stage when¬ 
ever he judges it expedient. Unlike Zurich, the number of prisoners 
in each of the three classes in the Lenzbourg penitentiary was nearly the 
same. The nuipber of trades practised is twelve to fifteen, and the con¬ 
vict has the choice of which he will learn. 

At the penitentiary of Veufchatel I passed several days as the 
guest of its director, Dr. Guillaume. I had opportunity to study 
it thoroughly, and I feel no hesitation in placing it among the 
model prisons of the world. Dr. Guillaume is a gentleman of great 
versatility of talent, high culture, boundless enthusiasm, and rare 
aptitudes for his calling. He has but one idea, one aim; and to that he 
bends all his strength with a sleepless arid tireless devotion: it is to 
change the bad men committed to his care into good ones: to receive 
criminals, and return them to society honest men. The average number 
of prisoners is about eighty, all men. There are three kinds of sentence. 
Some of the inmates are sentenced to simple imprisonment , (these 
are called correctionals;) some to reclusion, (no English equivalent in the 
sense here used,) and some to travaux forces , (hard labor.)* Those under 


* By the introduction of this statement here it is not meant to be implied that these 
sentences are peculiar to Neufchatel. The distinction is one in use in most of the coun¬ 
tries of continental Europe. 




218 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the first-named sentence are misdemeanants; those under the other two, 
felons. Nevertheless, in prison they all have much the same treatment. 
The number sentenced correctionally, as compared with those sentenced 
to reclusion and hard labor, is nearly as seven to one; but the number 
of correctional actually in prison at any one time is but little more 
than half of the whole number of inmates. The reason is the compara¬ 
tive shortness of their sentences. These vary from a month to two 
years, but the average is only four months. 

The penitentiary treatment here has for its aim, as already stated, the 
moral reformation of the prisoner. This treatment is progressive, and 
the classification is similar in principle to that of the Crofton system. 
On their entrance the prisoners are placed in the lower or penal class. 
In this class cellular separation, day and night, is rigidly enforced. The 
prisoners are placed in cells bare of all ornament and having few articles 
of furniture, simply such as a due regard to health requires. In this 
class the prisoner receives only 5 per cent, of his earnings. He is not 
permitted to wear his beard nor to cultivate plants in his exercise-yard. 
He can have only such books as are selected for him and can corre¬ 
spond with his friends and receive their visits to but a very limited ex¬ 
tent, and only in cases where it is believed that these influences will be 
decidedly beneficial. The aim is to lead the criminal to turn the mental 
eye inward and to reflect upon the past, so that he may better weigh 
the present and take care for the future. This self-introspection is thought 
indispensable to secure the sincere assent of the prisoner to the treatment 
of which he is made the object. Isolation and the visits of the officers 
are found to greatly facilitate the salutary reflections which it is sought 
to induce in the prisoner’s mind. These reflections have also a deterrent 
effect, for all who have thus gone over their past lives have declared 
that, if they could at that moment have left the prison, it seemed to them 
that they would ever afterward have remembered the lesson thus re¬ 
ceived. Correctionals, sentenced to only a short imprisonment, do not 
get beyond this penal class, in which the discipline is intended to be of 
a deterrent character. Those who are sentenced to longer terms pass 
successively into the middle class and then into the superior. 

There is no fixed minimum or maximum for separate imprisonment; 
its duration is in the discretion of the director. He holds, however, at 
the end of each month, a conference with the chaplain, school-master, 
steward, and chief warder, for the purpose of distributing the marks 
to which each is entitled for the month, for good conduct, for industry, 
and for attention to lessons: 0 signifies bad; 1, tolerable; 2, good: 3, 
very good. The maximum of marks attainable in a month, it is thus seen, 
is 9, as in the Crofton system. These marks, as well as the amount of 
earnings apportioned to him, are set down in the moral account kept with 
each prisoner. They are also transcribed into the memorandum-book of 
the prisoner, who is thus kept constantly informed of the judgment 
fomed by the prison authorities of his conduct. The proportion of earnings 
accorded to prisoners in the middle class is from 5 to 12 per cent.; in 
the superior, from 12 to 20. In these two classes they receive a larger 
percentage of earnings in proportion as the aggregate is greater ; never¬ 
theless, the conduct of the prisoner aud the degree of attention given to 
his lessons have their effect in diminishing or increasing the amount. 
Promotion from one class to another is determined by the prisoner’s 
character, his antecedents, and the length of his sentence. 

At the date of my visit—not counting correctional sentenced to a 
short imprisonment—there were in the penal class 31; in the middle, 
13; in the superior, 14. Among those in the superior class w r ere a 


PENITENTIARY OF NEUCHATEL. 


219 


number who had been in the prison ten, twelve, fifteen years, and who 
would have been free, if the principle of provisional liberation had been 
introduced into Switzerland. It is believed that this principle will soon 
have place in the Swiss legislation. 

With a view to gaining the will of the prisoner to the system of dis¬ 
cipline to which he is to be subjected, this system is explained to him 
as soon as lie enters the penitentiary. His antecedents are made the 
object of a careful but kindly examination. He is aided by suitable 
suggestions in his endeavor to search into the causes which led him 
into crime. Each case becomes the subject of a serious inquest, and 
confidential information is sought from respectable persons by means 
of some such letter as this : 

Sir: -, of -, aged-, has just been committed to the peniten¬ 
tiary of Neufcliatel, to undergo there an imprisonment of-years. For the purpose 

of being able to direct his penitentiary education with some chances of success, we 
desire to obtain exact information concerning his family and the associations in which 
he has lived; concerning his education, his religious and scholastic knowledge, his ap¬ 
prenticeship, his occupation, his means of living, his character and moral habits; in a 
word, concerning all the points which might guide us in our task and enlighten us as 
to the causes which have conducted him into the pathway of crime. Knowing the 
interest you take in the unfortunate, we venture to send you the accompanying 
formula, which we ask you to return to us after having answered, confidentially, the 
questions contained in it. Thanking you in advance, we are, Arc., 

[Signed by the director and chaplain of the penitentiary.]* 


* A formula is inclosed in this letter headed, “ Confidential informations.” Each 
page is ruled in two columns—the left containing printed questions, the right being 
blank to receive the answers. I print them solid, to economize space, and in a note, 
to avoid breaking the continuity of the text: 1. Name and surname of the prisoner 1 ? 
2. Date of birth ? 3. Place of nativity ? 4. Legitimate or illegitimate? 5. An orphan ? 
By loss of both parents? Of father? Of mother? 6. Since what age? 7. What 
was his education up to the time of entering the primary school ? 8. Did he live 

at home? 9. Or was he placed at board? With whom and where? By whom? 
10. How many years did he attend school ? 11. In what place ? 12. Was he studious? 

Did he show a taste for study or was he idle, indifferent, &c.? 13. At what age did 

he quit school? 14. What degree of learning had he when he ceased going to school? 
15. Has he attended night-schools? 16. At what age did he pursue the course of 
religious instruction and ratify the vow of his baptism? 17. Have you noticed any¬ 
thing special in the character of this catechumen ? 18. Has he undergone an appren¬ 

ticeship? 19. What and with whom? 20. Did his master set him a good example? 
21. What was the duration of his apprenticeship ? 22. What company has he fre¬ 
quented ? 23. After his first communion was he seen in the cafes making himself 
merry with wine? 24. Was he fond of gaming? 25. Has he traveled? In what 
countries ? For how many years ? 26. Has he served in foreign armies ? 27. What 
was then his reputation ? Was he a debauchee? 28. Are his parents still living? 
29- What were their means of living ? 30. Have they been convicted of crime? 31. 

Did his grandparents live in the family ? 32. How many brothers has he ? How 

many sisters? 33. By a first marriage? A second? A third? 34. How old are 
they? 35. What are their means of living? 36. Have any of them been in prison? 
37. Have they a guardian ? Does he do his duty by them ? 38. Do you know of the 
existeuce of mental or physical maladies (insanity, epilepsy, &c.) in his family? 39. 
Is he married? 40. At what age did he marry ? 41. Did he have the means of sup¬ 
porting a family ? 42. What is the moral character ot his wife ? 43. Have they chil¬ 
dren ? 44. How many ? 45. Has their education been neglected? 46. Has it been a 

happy marriage ? If not, to whom and to what do you trace the cause? 47. Have 
their children already been brought before the courts ? 48. AYas the prisoner orderly 

in his habits? 49. Was he industrious? 50. How much did he earn a day? 51. Is 
he a drunkard ? A gambler? A debauchee? 52. Has he illegitimate children ? 53. 
To what cause do you ascribe his misconduct and the crime he has committed? 
54. Has he had troubles? Has death sundered the ties of family? Has he expe¬ 
rienced reverses? 55. Has he relatives? Uncles? Aunts? AA hat are their moral 
character and their social position? 56. Has the commune aided him, his relatives, or 
his family ? 57. AVho takes care of his family, now that he is in prison ! 58. Might 
the prisoner, on his liberation, return to liis previous abode, or would it be better that, 
he change his associations ? 








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INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Even in this small prison, with an average of only eighty inmates, 
from fifteen to twenty different industries are carried on, including 
shoemaking, tailoring, carpentery, smithery, coopering, turning, lithog¬ 
raphy, watchmaking, book-binding, basket-making, brush-making, gar¬ 
dening, <&c. Every prisoner, not already master of a trade on liis en¬ 
trance, is allowed free choice of any of those pursued in the prison. 
The foremen work with the prisoners precisely as a boss mechanic works 
with his apprentices. There are never more than four workmen in a 
shop, but others are often working at the same trade in cells, who are 
instructed and supervised by the same foreman. While he is attending 
to them, the prisoners in the common shop are left alone, but they are 
as diligent in his absence as when he is present. In a great work-shop, 
where the keeper is always on an elevated platform, with no other occu¬ 
pation than that of overseeing a number of men working in silence, it 
is impossible for him to give the good example of industrious labor 
himself. Such a system is believed by Dr. Guillaume to be as perni¬ 
cious for the prison employe as it is for the prisoners. For this reason 
he gives the preference to the system which approaches nearest to that 
of the free work-shop, and it is on this account also that the law of 
silence does not exist in the penitentiary of Neufchatel. The same usage is 
found in the penitentiary of Baleville, the rule of silence not being en¬ 
forced there. This relaxation is upon the ground (the director of that 
prison says) that the liberty of talking openly, within fitting—that 
is to say, moderate—limits, makes the prisoners more frank and sin¬ 
cere, since it frees them from the necessity of resorting to devices 
for the purpose of communicating with each other. In the other 
Swiss penitentiary establishments the rule of silence exists. But Dr. 
Guillaume insists, and, indeed, it is well known to all conversant with 
the subject, that prisoners find a certain charm in breaking this rule, 
and that they succeed in doing so only too often. It is for that reason 
that he does not attempt its enforcement in his establishment. He 
holds that it is artificial, that it is consequently irrational, and fur¬ 
ther that it is little adapted to the training process to which prisoners, 
if they are to be reformed, must be subjected after the penal stage. In 
his own prison, where the foreman (who is a prison officer) works with 
the convict laborers, and every one is busy, there is very little conver¬ 
sation, and what is said relates to the work. At the ten-minute recesses, 
at 10 and 1 o’clock, conversation, directed and maintained within the 
limits of propriety and self-respect by the foreman, is found, instead of 
being hurtful, to have an excellent effect. For the most part it turns 
upon the subject of the last school-lesson, the mathematical problem 
given out to be solved, or the conference of Sunday, at which the em¬ 
ployes, as well as the prisoners, are required to be present. The pres¬ 
ence of the foreman is considered by Dr. Guillaume necessary, in order 
that, through his moral ascendency, the conversation may not degen¬ 
erate into grossness and obscenity. So far, on a three years’ trial, the 
authorities have only had occasion to congratulate themselves on the 
results of this system, which seems to be in accordance with the inward 
and essential nature of man. 

Labor in association is restricted to the prisoners in the middle and 
superior classes, and is accorded to them only when the accommodations 
and the kind of industry permit. Many remain in their cells even after 
having been promoted to the higher classes. The lack of suitable 
accommodations prevents their introduction into the workshop, and de¬ 
prives of its greater freedom and privilege many who have shown them¬ 
selves worthy of such indulgence. Such relative liberty Dr. Guillaume 


221 


PENITENTIARY OF NEUCHATEL. 

/ 

considers a necessity in this stage of penitentiary discipline. This incon¬ 
venience would disappear if there were three prison buildings—one for 
each class—in which the arrangements were adapted to the end in view, 
and to the necessities of each of these successive stages. The prisoners in 
passing from one establishment to another would see the progress made 
toward their liberation. Under the same roof it is difficult to establish 
and to make sensible the distinction between the two higher peniten- 
tentiary classes. For this reason Dr.' Guillaume is a partisan of the 
Croftou system in its strictness. 

As regards discipline, no corporal punishments are allowed. The 
punishment-cell and a diet of bread and water are authorized by law, 
but they are now never employed. Deprivation of work in an ordinary 
but empty cell is the severest disciplinary punishment at present in 
use. Ennui is found an effective means for conquering the most obsti¬ 
nate, especially if they have been treated with kindness and justice. 
The punishment-cell, it has been found, often makes martyrs, and it is not 
well to make martyrs in a penitentiary any more than in politics and re¬ 
ligion. For an officer to lose his temper and speak with anger to a prisoner 
who has been guilty of a breach of discipline, is to approach the lower 
moral level of the prisoner himself, and to give him reason to believe that 
he has not deserved so rigorous a treatment. For this reason Dr. Guil¬ 
laume makes it a rule to treat prisoners as the insane are treated, 
whose ill-conduct never provokes the wrath of the physician, but rather 
his compassion. He makes them feel, by words calm and self-restrained, 
that he is pained to perceive that they do not know how to govern them- 
selvesj and that they have not yet attained that self-control, that mas¬ 
tery of their thoughts and acts, that dignity, in a word, which belong 
to men who respect themselves. This mode of treatment, employed 
with tact and a skillful adaptation to each prisoner’s special character, 
has shown itself effectual. It requires mor e patience, greater effort , and 
a longer time , than the expeditious punishments of the lash, the douche 
bath, the dungeon, and other similar inflictions; but the most recal¬ 
citrant yield to it in the end; and—a Material consideration—without 
any waste of the prisoner’s inward moral forces, but rather a toning up 
and strengthening of his entire moral being. 

With a view of having a number of moral punishments, there have been 
introduced into the penitentiary of Neufchatel a number of moral re¬ 
wards and encouragements. The withdrawal of these latter constitutes 
a punishment far more sensibly felt, and therefore far more efficacious, 
than the rigors of the old regime. It would be difficult, if not impos¬ 
sible, to enumerate all the rewards held out to win back the prisoners to 
virtue’s paths, for they are often suggested by special tastes and desires, 
which take on an endless diversity of forms. {Some of them, however, 
may be named, which will serve to give an idea of their variety. They 
are: 1. Promotion, speedy if deserved, from class to class. 2. 
The privilege of apprenticeship to an interesting trade, such as lith¬ 
ography, book-binding, or any other that may be preferred. 3. Increase 
of the proportion of earnings. 4. Permission to use a part of these in 
the purchase of books, popular illustrated journals, scientific and lit¬ 
erary, engravings to adorn their cells, and tools wherewith to occupy 
themselves in their own time. 5. Permission to wear a watch, or have 
a thermometer. 6. Permission to wear their beard. 7. Permission to 
cultivate flowers and vegetables in the little garden of their exercise- 
yards, and, by consequence, to have flowers in their cells, and oil and 
vinegar for salad. 8. Permission to receive the visits of their relatives 
in the office of the director, and not in the prisoners’ conversation-room. 


222 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


9. More frequent leave to write letters to their friends. «10. Permission 
to purchase articles of clothing, for example, cravats, to wear on Sun¬ 
day. (Under this head Dr. Guillaume expressed a hope that the time 
might (come when the superior class should have, on Sunday, a special 
suit of clothes, including leather shoes—clogs only being now permitted 
by the rules—thereby contributing not only to their comfort, but to their 
self-respect and personal dignity.) 11. Permission to learn to play on 
the zithare , a small musical instrument, of thirty cords, making so little 
noise that it is scarcely heard in t^. adjoining cells. 12. The privilege 
of choosing books for themselves out of the prison library. 13. To draw, 
(especially to make mathematical drawings.) 14. To read the technical 
journals taken by the administration. 15. Admission to positions of 
trust ; for instance, in the distribution of meals, in the bureau, and in 
other services of the house, as temporary aids. 10. Permission to super¬ 
intend the apprenticeship of fellow-prisoners in the middle class. 

Long and noble as this catalogue is, a grave omission is observable 
in it. 

Abbreviation of the term of imprisonment is not among the incen¬ 
tives held out to the prisoners of tlieNeufchatel penitentiary to quicken 
their endeavors toward a better life. Yet nothing is so sweet to the 
human mind, nothing is so much coveted by it, as liberty ; and nothing, 
therefore, presents so powerful a motive to exertion as the hope of 
shortening the period of captivity, if only for a few days ; how much 
more when the term is months, or even years. Dr. Guillaume is quite 
sensible of this, and hopes, as all must, that Switzerland will not have 
to wait long for this great step in prison reform. 

Among the encouragements there is also one (not set down in the 
above enumeration) which I cannot approve, and which will not be ap¬ 
proved by my countrymen; but it is in accordance with European 
(continental) sentiment and usage. It is permission to occupy Sunday 
afternoon in small industries on their own account, such as embroidery, 
( broderie ,) the coloring of engravings, the manufacture of little wooden 
baskets, &c. This is contrary to American and English ideas of the 
sanctity of the Sabbath; and we think we draw our ideas from the 
word of God, which we regard as the ultimate standard of faith and 
morals. 

The withholding of the rewards and favors accorded to prisoners are 
the punishments employed when the private exhortations of the director 
produce no result. Admonition, kindly exhortation, the appeal to honor 
and manhood, are the first punishments, if that is not in this case a mis¬ 
nomer, and they are sufficient in a great number of cases. If there is a 
repetition of transgression, the withdrawal of a reward follows, and that 
is chosen whose loss will be most sensibly felt by the prisoner. Here in¬ 
dividualization, as a matter of course, comes in. If the prisoner shows 
himself submissive, if he feels that he is justly punished, and if he con¬ 
ducts himself in an exemplary manner for some time, the punishment 
ceases, and he again enters into the possession ot the forfeited privilege. 

Permission to wear the beard is a privilege greatly prized. Hence, 
the punishment which consists in a removal of this token of manhood is 
proportionally dreaded. The simple threat to cause a prisoner to be 
shaved for an offense is, in many cases, enough to prevent a repetition 
of it. Others are less sensitive on this point. It is necessary to indi¬ 
vidualize, and not—such is the opinion of Dr. Guillaume— humiliate , the 
prisoner. The punishment should in no case wound his self-respect, w hich 
he never wholly loses, though at times it sinks to a very low plane. 
This sentiment rises in the prisoner in proportion to the esteem which is 


PENITENTIARY OF NEUCHATEL. 


223 


shown him; and it is, above all, when called upon to punish him, that we 
should never forget that he is a man, our brother. In making him feel 
this, he will comprehend his own responsibility, and a feeling of shame 
will be awakened in his breast. This sentiment is feeble at first, but it 
grows and strengthens in proportion as the work of reformation advances. 
It is this vital fact which explains why, in the penitentiary of Neufchatel, 
there is neither corporal punishment, nor chains, nor prison garb, nor 
gens Warms , nor armed or even uniformed officials. The constant en¬ 
deavor is to place the prisoners in conditions similar to those which are 
found in respectable mechanics’ families, where labor, order, economy, 
and intellectual recreations are held in esteem. 

An effective school is maintained in the prison, on one of whose ses¬ 
sions it was my pleasure to attend. It is divided into three classes, and, 
so far, is upon the model of the ordinary primary schools of the country. 
The average attendance for the year lias been, in the lowest class, ten; 
in the middle, thirteen ; in the highest, fifteen. All the other prisoners 
receive lessons in their cells. A schoolmaster devotes his whole time 
to the work of instruction. Admission to the school is made a recom¬ 
pense of good conduct, and is found to be a strong stimulus to such con¬ 
duct. To all such, admission is an occasion of rejoicing and a source of 
satisfaction. A withdrawal of its privileges, for ever so short a time, is 
felt as a punishment. On entering the school, a written examination 
takes place, and this is repeated at the end of each month. The pupils 
are classified by its results. The order of the examination is as follows : 
1. Date. 2. Name of prisoner. 3. An exercise in reading. 4. Solution 
of a problem in arithmetic, o. Geography, questions and answers. 6. 
History, same. 7. Composition, on a subject assigned or freely selected. 
8 . Dictation of several sentences. 

The branches taught are reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, his¬ 
tory, and the natural sciences. Each lesson begins with the reading of 
a piece selected from a school-book used in the public schools of the 
country. The piece to be read is announced at a previous school session, 
so that the pupils may prepare themselves to ask the schoolmaster ques¬ 
tions on the subject to which it relates. He solves their difficulties, and 
adds such comments as he deems fit. He then gives oral lessons in geogra¬ 
phy, history, &c.—lessons which have been suggested by the piece read, or 
the questions asked. The endeavor is always, as much as possible, to 
give the practical side of things, so as the better to awaken the interest 
of the learners. The problems given in arithmetic and geometry are 
invariably such as admit of an immediate application 

As soon as they have arrived at the point where they are able to do 
so, the pupils are expected to keep a journal, in which, among other 
records, they give a summary of the lesson of each day, and some of 
these abridged statements are read at every school session. I was 
greatly interested in the compositions of this kind which were read on 
the day of my visit, all of which were on the subject of glass, giving an 
account of its elements, manufacture, uses, history, &c., &c. They gave 
token both of the thorough manner in which the teacher had imparted 
his instructions, and of the close attention with which they had been 
listened to by his convict scholars. 

On every Sunday morning, the hour immediately preceding divine 
service is devoted to a lecture by the director on whatever subject he 
may choose to address his audience, which is composed of all the em¬ 
ployes and prisoners of the establishment. His range of topics is wide, 
including biographies of celebrated men sprung from the ranks of the 
people, (Benjamin Franklin, John Bright,) philanthropists, (John How- 


224 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

aril, Florence Nightingale,) striking events of the clay, (the arbitration 
at Geneva,) new inventions and discoveries, (the electric telegraph, the 
microscope, the mowing-machine,) questions of a literary or scientific 
character, geography, history, astromomy; everything, in short, which 
constitutes a human interest or contributes to human progress. Before 
the lecture commences, Dr. Guillaume is accustomed, for a few moments, 
to pass in review the general conduct of the prisoners, and to give them 
his thoughts on lying, on idleness, on want of cleanliness, on in difference, 
on levity of character, on impoliteness, on thoughtlessness, on inatten¬ 
tion to order, or some other of the numerous points embraced under the 
general designation of minor morals. In the afternoon of Sunday the 
prisoners are required to write compositions, either on the subject of 
the morning’s lecture or on some other topic given out in class. As 
further subjects of composition, there are distributed copies of some 
engraving—“Our Father which art in Heaven,” or some other; and 
they may then exercise themselves in a description of the engraving, 
and in expressing their sentiments on what it represents. These com¬ 
positions are compared, their relative merits weighed, and the best of them 
selected for insertion in a little autographic journal, of which some account 
must now be given. This is a paper under the title of Travaux d’Eeole, 
(School-Work,) edited and published in the penitentiary every fortnight. 
Each number occupies four pages of square letter-paper, (large size,) 
and is illustrated by one or several pictures, the whole lithographed by 
the prisoners. It contains compositions, puzzles, arithmetical problems 
and their solutions, &c., mostly by the convicts, moral and instructive 
sentences, selected from eminent authors, and a variety of other matters. 
One needs but to glance at a few numbers of this unique journal to sat¬ 
isfy himself that the educative and reformatory power embodied in it 
must be great indeed. 

As a still further encouragement to diligence in learning, there are 
distributed at the end of every month, after the customary examination, 
engravings, books, crayons, &c., to those who have distinguished them¬ 
selves. 

Each class has an hour in school daily, and those who are in cellular 
confinement receive also the daily visit of the teacher. This is especially 
the case with the new-comers and the abecedarians. These last are not 
admitted into -class till they are able to follow readily the reading which 
takes place there. 

The penitentiary has a library of nearly 500 volumes. The school¬ 
master has charge of it and superintends the exchange of books. But 
it is his duty not to permit an exchange till he has satisfied himself that 
the applicant has really read the book he is returning, and has profited 
by it. The prisoner who wishes to be sure of receiving a new book 
writes in his journal a resume of his reading, and copies the passages 
which have most interested him by their sentiments or their style. In 
this manner the more zealous come at length to find themselves in posses¬ 
sion of a collection of maxims, sentences, pithy sayings, pro - verbs, and the 
like, drawn from the authors whom they have read. 

In the visits which Dr. Guillaume is accustomed frequently to make 
to the school-room, he takes occasion to ask one and another what book 
he is reading at the time, and he requires the prisoner so interrogated to 
give him some account of it. This suggests reflections on the manner of 
reading books so as to derive the greatest advantage from them ; and 
the observations addressed to one become profitable to all. 

The journal is not, strictly speaking, obligatory; but all know that to 
have one is to conform to the director’s desire, it is simply a copy-book, 


THE PENITENTIARY OF NEUCIIATEL. 


225 


in which the prisoner sets down each day what he has doue, and the re¬ 
flections suggested by his reading, his lessons, &c.; also his observations 
-on the weather and the periodic phenomena of the plants in his garden, 
on the trees of the neighboring forest, the birds which he hears sing, the 
visits made to him, the letters received or sent, the sermon of Sunday, 
the visitors seen in the chapel, &c., &c. 

The schoolmaster is required to submit to the director a monthly re¬ 
port of the condition of the school and the progress of the scholars. 
One of these, in manuscript, was placed in my hands, and now lies be¬ 
fore me. It is a curious and instructive record. Eleven prisoners had 
been admitted to the school during the month. The result of their in¬ 
itial examination showed that one only had a tolerable primary educa¬ 
tion ; the other ten, bad , reading and writing with difficulty. Nine had 
left the school, their term of sentence having expired. Of these, the 
primary education of two was good ; of two, tolerable ; of five, bad. The 
two noted as good had been four months in attendance ; the others were 
short-term prisoners, correctionals. The distribution of the school into 
classes was : In the inferior, 18; in the middle, 18 ; in the superior, 11; 
total, 47. The number of weekl 3 T lessons given to each class was G; total, 
18. The course of study for the month had included, in geography, the 
principal mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes of Switzerland, its differ¬ 
ent cantons and capitals, the products of its soil and industry; in 
Swiss history, the leading events of the fourteenth and sixteenth centu¬ 
ries; in inventions, the telegraph; in arithmetic, numerous practical 
problems, with the bearing of each, and exercises in class. The master 
further reports that he has examined the summaries made by the pris¬ 
oners of the contents of the books read by them during each week, and 
that the result of the usual monthly examination had been, upon the 
whole, satisfactory. The subjects of the pieces read in class, and of the 
compositions written on them, are reported as glass, porcelain, clothing, 
mountain birds, the cork-tree, consumption of alcoholic drinks in Eng¬ 
land and the canton of Berne, statistics of intemperance and consider¬ 
ations upon it; petroleum, and the quantity exported from America; 
different systems of lighting, &c., &c. Thirty hours are reported as 
having been devoted to giving lessons in the cells. He puts down as 
the subjects of Dr. Guillaume’s Sunday lectures for the month : August 
4 , An account of his voyage from Neufchatel to England in a geograph¬ 
ical point of view, means of communication by railway and steamer; 
August 11, Interesting fragments from Macaulay’s History; August 
18, Miss Mary Carpenter and her labors; August 25, Climates, with a 
picture showing the plants and animals of the different zones. The re¬ 
port embraces other points which I omit, and closes with a hearty 
tribute to the diligence, zeal, interest, and good conduct of his convict 
pupils. 

1 was anxious to ascertain whether the public opinion of the prison 
could be so developed and directed that it might be made to react ef¬ 
fectively upon the prisoners as one of the governing forces of the estab¬ 
lishment. On this point I interrogated Dr. Guillaume closely, and his 
account of the matter was substantially as follows: He conceives that 
such as are the employes, such will be the prisoners; that if the former 
comprehend their mission, possess the necessary tact, and make them¬ 
selves respected by their conduct and their conscientious industry, (for 
they are required to work no less than the jmsouers,) the latter will imi¬ 
tate them in well-doing, and all will contribute and unite their influence 
in maintaining the order and discipline of the establishment. Conse¬ 
quently, his first care is directed to the officers. To develop their inter- 
H. Ex. 185-15 



226 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


est in the work, he holds frequent reunions of the foremen and other 
employes, and gives them familiar lectures, or, as he styles them, confer¬ 
ences ,, on the history of penitentiary reform, on the various systems em¬ 
ployed to effect the reformation of criminals, and on the duties of per¬ 
sons charged with so high and responsible a function. These conferences 
have for object the familiarizing of the employes with the service, and 
especially with the spirit which has dictated its rules and regulations. 
In making apparent to their apprehension how great and noble is the 
mission of laboring for the reformation and future well-being -of their 
fallen brethren, the employes, if they have the necessary aptitudes, be¬ 
gin to comprehend how important is the part which they are called to 
play, and by degrees they come to realize the dignity of being respon¬ 
sible agents, and to feel a pride in their w^ork. They no longer look 
upon themselves as mere turnkeys and jailers, but rather as guides, 
teachers, trainers, w T ho must, above all, preach by their example. They 
have, severally, at heart the good order and discipline of their ward— 
that is, of the prisoners who are placed under their special care. Emu¬ 
lation develops itself among them, and they seek to rival each other in 
zeal for order, decorum, good manners, politeness, industry, &c. Each 
one is anxious to have the cleanest and most orderly ward, and the best 
arranged, best kept, most industrious, and most successful workshop. 

As regards the penitentiary public, this esprit de corps makes itself 
equally felt, insomuch that it produces in all the employes a desire to> 
maintain the good repute of the establishment. The penitentiary is for 
them their family. 

At the last industrial exhibition in the canton the penitentiary coopers 
obtained a medal, and the gardeners a prize, since which time there has 
been established a traditional reputation, which will doubtless be main¬ 
tained, for the prisoners have become imitators of the keepers in their 
esprit de corps. On the occasion of the exhibition, the prisoners were 
anxious to prove to the public that they knew how to work, and that in 
due time they would be worthy to re-enter society. The press, on this oc¬ 
casion, indulged in a variety of criticisms, but the public showed itself 
favorable to the introduction of industrial occupations iuto the prison,, 
and the admission of the products of prison labor to this general expo¬ 
sition of agricultural and mechanical industry. 

Owing to the sagacious and comprehensive combinations of Dr. Guil¬ 
laume, as explained above, the public opinion of the prisoners is such that 
it exercises a strong power of control over them. Often, by their remon¬ 
strances and their influence, they repress the evil thoughts which occa¬ 
sionally show themselves in one or another of their comrades. Among 
the motives impelling them to act in so praiseworthy a manner is the 
fear of forfeiting or lessening the fair reputation which may have been 
won by their shop. Dr. Guillaume explained, and seemed very desirous 
that I should comprehend, that, in speaking of evil purposes formed by 
individual prisoners and suppressed by the force of public opinion, he 
alluded to trivial offenses—mere breaches of discipline—for they never 
had had cases of gross insubordination, revolt, and the like—cases which, 
indeed, they had come to regard as of almost impossible occurrence. 

Various books of record, in addition to accouuts-current, are kept by 
the authorities, in which are noted different classes of facts relating to 
the prisoners. I propose to make but brief reference to only a portion 
of them. One contains the most complete statement attainable, whether 
from the prisoner himself or from trustworthy persons in the locality 
from which he came, of his antecedents, character, habits, occupation, 
relations, value of the property stolen, if his crime was theft, &c., &c. 


THE PENITENTIARY OF NEUCHATEL. 


227 


Another opens a moral account with him, in which a continuous record 
is kept, month by month, of his conduct, industry, and habits of study, 
according to the following form : 


Names. 

Month of-. 


Conduct. Industry. 

School. 

Total of marks. 

Earnings. 

A..... 

1 

3 3 

3 

9 

3/. 60c. 

B. 

2 | 2 

2 

6 

2/. 80c. 


A column is added for general remarks. The marks are settled, as 
already explained, in the general conference of officers at the end of 
each month. 

In addition to this there is for every prisoner a file or bundle of papers, 
(dossier,) in which are found : 1. The charge, sentence, &c., of the court. 
2. Official and confidential information obtained relative to the prison¬ 
er’s antecedents. 3. A short account of his life, written by himself or 
at his dictation. 4. The result of his scholastic examination on entrance. 
5. A monthly transcript from the moral-account book and the punish¬ 
ment record. 6. His photographic likeness when committed. 7. Good 
or bad facts relating to his conduct. 8. His photograph on leaving the 
prison. 9. Facts relating to the aid given him at his discharge, (son 
patronage ,) and his conduct after liberation. 

The cantine* does not exist in the penitentiary of Neufchatel, nor is it 
in contemplation to introduce it. It is believed there that such an in¬ 
stitution must end in demoralizing both officers and prisoners, and that 
therefore,the fixed dietary of the prison ought to be made sufficient to 
satisfy all fit and reasonable wants. 

During the few days I passed at Neufchatel I mingled freely with the 
prisoners, conversing with them ad libitum without the presence of an 
officer. I found the best spirit and the best state of feeling existing 
among them. Of not a few the love to Dr. Guillaume seemed like 
that of children to a father. I verily believe that there are pris¬ 
oners in that penitentiary whom this feeling would hold there as with 
chains of steel, if every bolt were removed, and every door set wide 
open, thus proving again the truth of Dr. Wichern’s paradox, that 11 the 
strongest wall is no wall.” 

It will be asked, What about the earnings in a prison which seems so 
much like a university, and where every thought, contrivance, and 
effort appear to be given to the reformation of the convicts ? I am 
happy to reply that they are nearly enough to meet all the current ex¬ 
penses of the establishment, and, in all probability, will reach that 
point in time. They are greater to-day, man for man, than in any other 
penitentiary establishment in Switzerland. 

Another and still more important question is: What reformatory 
results are shown? To this question I make answer: The experiment 
is yet in its early infancy. At the time of my visit, scarcely two years 
had elapsed since the accession of Dr. Guillaume. In the most remark- 


*This is found in all French and perhaps most other continental prisons. It may he 
described, in the most general terms, as a privilege of purchasing additional comforts, 
not included in the legal rations, with the prisoner’s disposable peculium —that is, such 
part of his earnings as he may spend while still in prison. 



















228 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


able and most successful experiment in prison discipline that perhaps 
the world has ever seen—that of Colonel Montesinos in Spain—which 
finally brought down the recommittals from 40 per cent, to zero, no visi¬ 
ble results, as far as statistics are concerned, were shown till after the 
completion of the third year. As regards Dr. Guillaume’s experiment, 
if he does not in the end bring down the percentages of relapses glori¬ 
ously, reformatory prison discipline must be a delusion ; those who seek 
to inaugurate it are chasing a bubble; and the best thing society can 
do will be to hang, shoot, or decapitate every man whom it can catch 
and prove to have committed a crime. 

§ 2. Reformatories in Switzerland. —Most of the Swiss cantons seem 
well provided with juvenile reformatory institutions, of which, however, 
the time at my command permitted me to see but one, and of that to 
take but a cursory glance. It is an agricultural colony or reform school, 
two miles from Berne, conducted on the family plan, with twelve boys 
in each household, under a house-father. The establishment appeared 
to me well kept in every respect, and the appearance and tone of the 
inmates excellent. Results good, few of the boys returning to crime. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF TRISONS IN GERMANY. 

§ 1. German convict-prisons. —Of these my limited time and the press¬ 
ure of duties belonging to the leading department of my mission allowed 
of an inspection of but three—the Moabeit prison, at Berlin, Prussia; 
the prison of Bruchsal, Baden; and the prison at Munich, Bavaria, 
formerly under the care of the celebrated Obermaier—all of them among 
the most renowned of the penal establishments of the empire. 

(a) The convict-prison at Berlin .—My distinguished friend Baron von 
Holtzendorff and the illustrious Dr. Wichern being both absent from 
Berlin at the time of my visit, I was compelled to make my inspection of 
this prison alone. The Moabeit is a prison constructed on the panoptic 
or radiating cellular plan, with four wings and five hundred and 
eight cells, besides underground workshops sufficient for one hundred 
and fifty men, and a farm, at some distance from the prison, to give 
employment to those prisoners who, on account of bad health, age, or 
length of sentence, cannot serve out their entire term in separation. 
The prison is managed by a Protestant brotherhood, called the Brethren 
of the Rauhe Haus, and trained, therefore, by Dr. Wichern for the 
work of the Inner Mission. The average of relapses is about 13 per cent. 
Though having no permit from an official source, I was received with 
much courtesy by the director, a gentleman of great benevolence of 
character, but unfortunately knowing nothing of English, French, 
Spanish, or Italian, a catalogue which exhausted my own powers of 
speech. He began by showing me a complete set of drawings which 
exhibited the prison in all its parts, and, being in a universal language, 
were readily comprehended. He then conducted me through the estab¬ 
lishment, entering at least fifteen to twenty cells, where I had an oppor¬ 
tunity of seeing the prisoners at their different occupations. These 
were quite various, and embraced lithographing, engraving, carving in 
wood, &c. The manner of his intercourse with the prisoners pleased 
me exceedingly, marked as it was by a gentle and kindly spirit, with 



CONVICT PRISONS AT BERLIN-BRUCHSAL. 


229 


nothing of official stiffness. The visit was in all cases commenced 
by a friendly greeting, and on leaving the director bade each one 
adieu, with sometimes an added hand-shake. As we passed along he 
explained everything in German , just as if I had understood a word of 
it! The prison I found kept in the neatest manner 5 the prisoners had 
a cheerful look; every cell (for we peeped into many which we did not 
enter) seemed a little home of solitary industry 5 material wants were 
well provided for; and the director was evidently a favorite with the in¬ 
mates. Beyond this I cannot go. It was the shell only that I saw. 
Visiting prisons with no power of intercommunication is but a sorry 
and certainly a most unsatisfactory business. 

( b .) The convict-prison at Bruchsal. —This is the model cellular peniten¬ 
tiary of Germany, and the oldest, having been opened in 1848. Like 
the Moabeit, at Berlin, it is on the radiating plan with four wings. The 
number of cells is four hundred and eight. A model prison itself, it has 
a model director in Herr Ekert, whose administration combines, in ad¬ 
mirable proportions, justice with mercy, firmness with humanity, and 
breadth of scope with a minute attention to details. 

Most of the German states have three, many of them four, differ¬ 
ent kinds of public punishment. Punishment of the highest degree, 
awarded of course to the highest crimes, is condemnation to the zucht- 
haus , (house of correction.) Prisoners so sentenced lose their civil 
rights. The maximum sentence is for life; the minimum, two years. 
The second degree is termed arheitshaus , (work-house.) Condemnation 
to this punishment varies from a few mouths to several years, but it 
does not extinguish municipal rights. As its names implies, it involves 
compulsory labor the same as the zuchthaus. The third degree is called 
gefdngness , (jail.) This sentence does not make labor obligatory, but 
allows 11 occupation in accordance with the social position and abili.ty of 
the prisoner .* 7 A fourth kind of punishment—it can hardly be named a 
degree —is termed festung , (imprisonment in a fortress.) It is a punish¬ 
ment awarded to gentlemen offenders; mostly in cases of political crime 
or dueling. 

But I seem to hear the inquiry, What has all this to do with the peni¬ 
tentiary of Bruchsal ? Not much, perhaps, but at least this : Formerly 
the establishment at Bruchsal united in itself two prisons, the zuchthans 
and the arheitshaus. The prisoners of each class were in nearly equal 
numbers, and, though nominally under different rules, were both subjected 
to the same system of absolute isolation. But the system of mixing 
the two classes has been abolished. None but the higher criminals are 
received at present, so that the penitentiary has become strictly a con¬ 
vict-prison. Although the system is intended to be rigorously cel¬ 
lular, there is a department of the prison, called the <£ auxiliary estab¬ 
lishment , 77 where association is permitted to the following classes of 
prisoners: 1. Those who have been in cellular separation six years, 
unless they elect to remain in isolation. 2 . Old men who have passed 
the age of seventy. 3. Prisoners adjudged not fit for cellular separa¬ 
tion on account of the state of their health, bodily or mental. There 
w T ere some twenty or thirty persons in the auxiliary establishment when 
I was at Bruchsal, out of a total of 384. In point of fact, not more than 
an average of nine per cent, are detained for x>eriods exceeding four 
years. Though a zealous supporter of the separate system, Mr. Ekert 
states, in one of his reports, that after three years of cellular confine¬ 
ment the muscular fiber becomes remarkably weakened, and that, after 
that, to require hard work would be tantamount to requiring an im¬ 
possibility. 


230 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Mr. Ekert conducted me through every part of his admirably arranged 
and admirably managed establishment, and explained the multiplied 
details of its organization and working. I cannot stay to repeat his 
statements at any length. The different occupations of the prisoners 
run up to eighteen or twenty. Every prisoner learns a trade, who was 
not master of one before his committal. To some extent the prisoner’s 
own preference is consulted, but the great study is to give him a trade 
that will enable him to earn an honest living after his discharge. It 
may be stated here that while only three or four per cent, of the con¬ 
victs are wholly illiterate when received, more than half had not learned 
a trade. They are encouraged and incited to diligence by being allowed 
to share in the product of their toil. Two chaplains are employed, one 
for the Catholic, the other for the Protestant prisoners, who severally hold 
service twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday, besides doing abun¬ 
dant pastoral work in the cells. Two schoolmasters also devote their 
whole time to the work of scholastic instruction in the cells. An annual 
examination of the prison pupils takes place, (the interval is certainly too 
long,) at which premiums are distributed to the deserving, consisting of 
books, copies for drawing, tools, &c., &c. Upon the whole, the training, 
schooling, industrial employment, and religious care of the convicts ap¬ 
peared to me to be in a satisfactory condition. 

The superior officers meet every day in the office of the director for 
conference, when they make report of their respective observations for 
the last twenty-four hours, and take counsel together for the future. 

(c.) The convict-prison at Munich .—This penitentiary, placed a little 
outside of the city, was the scene of Councilor Obermaier’s labors, who, 
however, long since—more than twenty years, I think—retired from it; 
but he still lives, a vigorous and honored octogenarian. I called at his 
residence in Munich, with the great infelicity of finding that he had 
gone to spend a month in the Bavarian Alps; and so I missed seeing 
the man whom, of all others living, I should most desire to converse 
with, since Maconochie and Montesinos have both been called to their 
reward. 

Mr. Petersen, who was a delegate from the Bavarian government to 
the congress, accompanied me to the prison. We found (which was 
another disappointment) that Mr. Mess, also a Bavarian government 
delegate to the congress, who is the present director, had departed on 
leave only the day before. We were, however, courteously received by 
the sub-director and chaplain, the former of whom conducted us through 
the establishment, giving all needful explanations. 

The prison was originally a monastery, and has been adapted to its 
present use. It is of great extent, but extremely irregular. Every part 
was found to be clean, sweet, and in good order. There are fifty-seven 
cells for separate imprisonment, all but two having occupants the day I 
was there. Beyond that the establishment is on the congregate plan. 
The entire capacity is for five hundred and fifty; there were four hun¬ 
dred and ninety-nine at the time of my visit. It is a convict-prison, 
(maison de force,) and none are admitted but those sentenced to hard 
labor, (travaux forces.) In Obermaier’s time, and since, sentences were 
from five years to life. Now the shortest are for one year. There were 
fifty-two life-prisoners. Most of those who have this sentence die in 
prison; few ever receive a pardon. 

Contraband traffic, especially in tobacco, is the offense oftenest com¬ 
mitted. The punishments are reprimands, diminution of rations, pri¬ 
vation of peculium, confinement in a cell, the dungeon, and, in bad 
cases, irons. Corporal punishment has been abolished siuce 1861. It 


CONVICT AND DETENTION PRISONS AT MUNICH. 


231 


is gratifying to know that since its abolishment the number of offenses 
has greatly diminished. Prior to its prohibition the prisoners—so it 
was reported to me—were in a constant state of irritation, and open 
revolt was not infrequent. Since then nothing of the kind has occurred. 
The prisoners are tranquil and docile. School is held daily for two 
hours. There are six classes, and each class receives two hours’ school¬ 
ing per week. Better would it be to double the dose. The branches 
taught are those common in primary schools, with a little chemistry and 
natural science superadded. The progress made is fair. 

As in Baden, the prisoners nearly all know how to read when com¬ 
mitted; but the greater part have not learned a trade. The industries 
pursued in the prison are many, including lithography, book-binding, 
shoemaking, spinning, weaving, painting, carpentry, &c., besides do¬ 
mestic labors and other work for the establishment, in which thirty- 
eight prisoners find employment. The net earnings in 1871 amounted 
to $11,977, which was considerably more than sufficient to meet a fourth 
of the expenses. 

The prisoners sleep as well as work in association. Obermaier had a 
strange liking for this system, and no doubt his extraordinary genius 
for controlling bad men and molding them to his will enabled him to 
overcome many of the evils inseparable from it. It is, however, in¬ 
herently and ineradicably vicious, and is now condemned by the com¬ 
mon judgment of the world. 

The prisoners take their dinner at 11 a. in., after which they are per¬ 
mitted to amuse themselves in the large courts or yards of the prison 
till 1 p. m. They are supervised by keepers during this hour and a half, 
but otherwise are quite unrestrained. Passing through the different 
courts, I observed that all were perfectly well-behaved. They conversed 
freely together and engaged in a variety of amusements, but without 
tumult, disorder, or anything approaching to unseemly or excessive 
noise. 

I made special inquiry as to the influence of so unusual an indulgence, 
and the answer received was substantially as follows: At their prom¬ 
enade in the courts, the prisoners are allowed all possible liberty. They 
choose their company and their subjects of conversation as they see fit. 
This system, far from being attended with evil consequences, is found 
preferable to that which forbids all converse. Down to 1862, this prohi¬ 
bition had effect. But obedience to such a rule was found impossible to 
be enforced, and its infraction drew after it a multitude of punishments 
whose only effect was to harden even the better prisoners, and to paralyze 
the softening influences of the school and the church. Nevertheless, to 
guard against the evil which might be done by the worse to the better 
prisoners, the former are excluded from these collective recreations, and 
are required to take their exercise in separate yards, which is a quiet 
but powerful means of maintaining order and preventing excesses in 
the associated courts. 

§ 2. Detention prison at Munich .—After inspecting the convict-prison, 
Mr. Petersen and myself made a short visit to the detention prison, in 
the city, for the confinement of persons awaiting trial or transfer after 
conviction and sentence. This is a new prison, opened two years ago. 
It is upon the cellular plan, as all prisons of this kind ought to be, with 
accommodations for fifty men and fifteen to twenty women. A very few 
receive short sentences to this prison, but they are quite exceptional 
cases. It is not intended as a punishing prison, but simply a prison for 
safe custody. Labor is not exacted, but such as have a trade are per¬ 
mitted to work at it as far as there is opportunity, and are entitled to 


232 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


whatever they earn. It is truly a model prison of its class. I was pleased, 
with the director and particularly with his wife, whom I found intelli¬ 
gent, cultivated, amiable, and deeply interested in the future of the 
prisoners. 

§ 3. Patronage of discharged prisoners in Bavaria .—The work of aiding 
discharged prisoners is admirably organized in this little kingdom. On 
leaving the detention prison, we drove to an asylum or refuge for lib¬ 
erated prisoners, who, on discharge, have been recommended for aid by 
directors of prisons to the patronage society of Munich. It is a house, 
with garden attached, having accommodations for fourteen men and ten 
women, the two sexes occupying distinct parts of the establishment and 
being wholly separated from each other. A porter and his wife are in 
charge, by whom everything is kept in perfect cleauliuess and order, thus 
giving the place an attractive and home like air. It is simply a transi¬ 
tional home for the inmates, bridging over the chasm bet ween the prison 
and steady work. While waiting for this latter, the ex-prisoners either 
busy themselves with odd jobs obtained in the city, or in working for 
the house—splitting wood, making shoes, cultivating the garden, &c. 
There were but three in the refuge when visited by me, and they were 
all employed on city jobs. Their average stay in the home is about two- 
weeks. 

I had the pleasure of attending one of the sessions of the committee 
of the patronage or aid society of Munich, and was greatly interested in 
the proceedings. The business was conducted with much animation,, 
amid a generous flow of Bavarian beer. The speeches were interpreted 
to me by a Dr. Strauss, and interested me greatly, particularly those on 
a rather novel application, which created considerable merriment, asking 
for money to enable the applicant to get married. 

It will, I think, be worth while to go a little into detail on the organi¬ 
zation and work of the Munich society and the general question of 
patronage in Bavaria. The aid society of Munich was formed in 1860, 
having for its object the moral improvement and material well-being of 
liberated prisoners who are citizens of Munich. It makes no distinction 
in respect of age, sex, or religion, but gives special attention to young 
persons of both sexes. It has a capital, including the refuge before de¬ 
scribed, of 10,060 florins. Its receipts in 1871 were: subscribed and 
paid by members, 1,580 florins ; appropriation by the state, 750 florins p 
interest on capital, balance from 1870, &c., 946 florins; total, 3,276 florins. 
It has a membership of 1,550, composed of ladies as well as gentlemen. 
Each member must pay 36 kreutzers a year. Larger contributions are 
received from many, but they are free-gifts. Tbe society holds only 
an annual meeting, but a committee consisting of forty-two members 
meets every Monday night. The following is the order of business : 1. 
It deliberates on the reports sent from directors of prisons, giving infor¬ 
mation that such and such prisoners are to be discharged, and also in re¬ 
lation to their character. 2. It considers and decides on the admission 
of these prisoners to patronage. 3. It chooses from among the mem¬ 
bers of the society guardians to take charge of such prisoners as are ac¬ 
cepted. 4. It considers communications sent in by guardians, relating 
to the conduct of their wards, and decides upon the assistance to be 
given to these latter. 5. It acts on any financial questions that may 
arise. 

The special duties of a guardian are : 1. To maintain a constant and. 
paternal watchfulness over his ward. 2. To procure for him remuner¬ 
ative work, and to be his protector. 3. To provide for him clothing,. 


AID SOCIETIES IN BAVARIA. 233 

tools, money needed to travel in looking for work, and even, when occa¬ 
sion requires, to furnish him with lodgings. 

Each ward has his special guardian who watches over him, counsels 
him, supplies his most pressing wants, takes charge of any money ap¬ 
propriated by the society for his use, and, if there be a necessity, en¬ 
deavors to effect a reconciliation between him and his family. 

The results are scarcely such as would have been expected from so 
much labor and care. Of the 1,182 persons who have been received as 
wards of the society since I860, 377 have relapsed; 1G2 have withdrawn 
themselves from all supervision; 2G1 are doubtful; 27 have died, and 
352 have undergone a radical change, and become completely reformed 
in principle and life. 

In the province of which Munich is the capital city there are twenty- 
five districts. Societies similar to that of Munich are found in the 
chief cities of thirteen of them, and steps have been taken to organize like 
associations in the other twelve. These local societies are in all respects 
formed upon the model furnished by the society of Munich. Each is in¬ 
dependent, yet all have in the committee at Munich, as it were, a cen¬ 
tral organ, which forms a bond of union between them, awakens mutual 
sympathies, makes them feel that they have common interests, and oc¬ 
casionally even advances funds, which are sometimes deficient in country 
organizations. 

Bavaria embraces eight provinces—seven besides that of which 
Munich is the capital. The greater part of the chief cities of these have 
also their patronage societies, and very many of the small towns as 
well—some sixty in all; so that, including those in the metropolitan 
province, Bavaria, with a population scarcely, if at all, exceeding that 
of New York, has at least eighty prisoners’ aid societies, all of them 
organized on the plan of that at Munich, even to the holding of weekly 
meetings on Monday night. The state encourages these associations 
with small grants of money for their work; but the most effective aid 
they have consists in this, that, six weeks in advance of the liberation 
of a convict, every prison gives information of this fact and of his 
character to the association which takes charge of its prisoners. The 
chief obstacle encountered by these associations is the distrust of the 
public and the prejudices which it feels and shows against contact with 
liberated prisoners ; above all, when they have been thieves. To over¬ 
come these prejudices is one of the great duties which the aid societies 
impose upon themselves; and they have been to a great degree suc¬ 
cessful, particularly in Munich. 

A month or six weeks before their liberation it is quite common for 
prisoners to write to the director of the prison a letter asking him to 
address in their favor a communication to the committee of such or such 
an aid society. In communicating such a request to a society, the 
director at the same time gives it all desirable information touching the 
conduct of the prisoner during the whole term of his imprisonment; on 
his occupation in prison; on the change which his treatment has effected 
in him, if any; or whether he has remained incorrigible. This petition 
is submitted to the decision of the committee at the first session after 
its reception. But, as the committee is composed of the most respect¬ 
able citizens of the locality, men thoughtful and prudent, they are un¬ 
able, ordinarily, to come to a definitive decision at their first meeting,, 
especially as they are often ignorant of the social status of the prisoner 
and of his family. In cases where the committee desire to have more- 
ample information, it charges one of its members with the special duty 


234 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


of procuring it. Each petition is registered, with a summary of all the 
information afforded in it. 

That feature in the constitution of the Bavarian aid societies by 
which a special guardian or protector is assigned to each liberated pris¬ 
oner who becomes their ward, with the duties already described, is par¬ 
ticularly worthy of notice. It is beyond all praise. 

I have already mentioned my presence at one of the sessions of the 
patronage society of Munich. A copy of the minutes of that session was 
kindly furnished me through my friend Mr. Petersen. As it can hardly 
fail to have interest for those who occupy themselves with penitentiary 
questions, and especially for the members of prison societies, I append 
a translation, despite a complimentary sentence or two of a personal 
character. 


Minutes of the session of 12th August, 1872. 

President, Superior Commissioner Peekert. 

Mr. Petersen, prefect, presents Dr. Wines, of New York, president of the International 
Penitentiary Congress of London. 

The president thinks it an occasion of congratulation to he favored with the presence 
of a gentleman who has displayed an activity so great and so fruitful in useful results 
in respect of prison reform, and through whose agency the time cannot he far distant 
when the friends of our work, on hoth sides of the ocean, will lend to each other a mu¬ 
tual support hy the intercommunication of their respective experiences. 

Dr. Wines returns thanks for the honor done him, and says that his visit to Bavaria 
is mainly for the purpose of studying the organization of patronage in this kingdom, 
and making personal observation of its workings. 

After the reading of the minutes of the session of the 5th August, the president re¬ 
marks that Joseph Tamper, who is mentioned in them, is, in the opinion of medical 
men, too sick to remain under the care of the society. Thereupon, he is remitted to the 
charge of the philanthropic society. 

Several directors of prisons announce, hy letter, the approaching liberation of: 1. 
John Munch, potter, a workman in the manufactory of Rebdorf. After having been 
admitted, Mr. Auracher, member of the committee, is designated as his guardian. 2. 
Catherine Muller, single woman and laundress, aged twenty-four years, a prisoner at 
Wasserbourg and a native of Au, has the best of certificates. Accordingly she is ad¬ 
mitted, and Mr. Fr. Barthelmes, her future guardian, promises to procure her work. 3. 
Mary Huber, aged twenty years, a prisoner at St. Georges, is admitted; and Mr. Ra- 
vizza is named as her guardian, in case she should need the aid of the association. 4, 5, 
and 6. Anna Mantel, petty thief; John Kappeller, an unmitigated gambler ; and John 
Frey, an incorrigible vagrant, are not admitted because of their antecedents. 

Louis Felser, printer, a ward of the society, asks sufficient money to defray the ex¬ 
pense of his registry, made necessary by his approaching marriage. Several members 
favored the granting of this request; others opposed it. After a number of speeches, 
it is resolved that, before coming to a definitive decision, information be obtained re¬ 
garding the character and antecedents of the betrothed. 

Mr. Brucktraw, a resigned member of the society, is again received as an active mem¬ 
ber, and pays 4 florins 30 kreutzers as a subscription. 

Richland, a ward of the society, having conducted himself in an exemplary manner 
as miller’s boy at Bamberg, is voted 18 florins traveling-money. 

Ward Delmoro, to enable him to take a situation offered, receives two shirts, three 
aprons, two robes, and one blouse from the wardrobe of the society. 

The Treasurer Kinluer will have for substitute, during the time of his vacation, Mr. 
Comptroller Baierlaclier. 

After the reading of the present minutes the president invites our honored visitor to 
kindly affix his signature as a souvenir of his presence among us. 

E. C. Wines, Secretary of the National Prison Association of the United States. 

PEEKERT, President. 

GAMPERT, Secretary. 


PRISONS OF ITALY. 


235 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

PELSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS IN ITALY. 

§ 1. The prison Delle Marate .—In company with my friend Mr. Bel- 
trani-Scalia, the very intelligent, able, earnest (the better word would 
be enthusiatic) inspector-general of prisons in the kingdom of Italy, 
I paid a flying visit to the only prison in Florence, named as above. 
It was only a glauce that could be given to it, and it is but the 
briefest word that can be said of it. It is not a convict prison, but may be 
described, not inaccurately perhaps, as a detention prison and house of 
correction combined. It is on the Auburn system—association in com¬ 
mon workshops by day, and complete separation by night. It has five 
hundred cells, and the number of inmates, September 22, 1871, was 
376, of whom thirty were women. These latter are really in a distinct 
prison, for it is separated from the men’s prison by a public street. Two 
beautiful little girls I saw in this part of the establishment—bright as 
new-coined eagles—the children of convict women. My heart was 
pained aud oppressed by the thought of how much that is vile and cor¬ 
rupting they must necessarily see aud hear and learn there. 

The prison Delle Marate, though not a model, has good points. 
Labor seemed well organized, and among the industries, I noticed, was 
printing, which is one of the very best for prison inmates. Here was 
printed Mr. Beltrani-Scalia’s Keview of Penitentiary Science, a 
monthly journal of much spirit and ability, which is doing admirable 
service in Italy, and, to some extent, throughout Europe, in the work of 
prison reform. But this is a digression. The department of the prison 
that most gratified me was the school, which was attended by a 
hundred or more of the younger prisoners (in whose case, up to thirty- 
five, I think, attendance is obligatory) and as many of the older ones as 
chose. It is taught by the two chaplains, who give their whole time 
to religious and scholastic instruction. A very remarkable case of 
progress was brought to n^ notice, that of a lad who had been an inmate 
of the prison for only a month. At the time of entrance he did not 
know a letter of the alphabet; yet I heard him read, quite fluently, a 
page in a book as difficult, I should suppose, as what we call the Sec¬ 
ond Header usually is. It is the most remarkable instance of rapid 
acquisition that ever came within my knowledge. 

§ 2. The prisons of Rome. —There are four prisons in this city, includ¬ 
ing one for juvenile offenders. Two of these only did I visit, being ac¬ 
companied on my inspection by Mr. Cardon, supreme director, and by 
Mr. Beltrani-Scalia, inspector-general, of prisons. 

(a.) The prison Delle Terme. —This establishment is accommodated in a 
vast building, which was formerly a public granary, but has been altered 
to adapt it to the uses of a prison, and has been used as such for fifty 
years. As might be supposed, it is but ill-suited to the purpose, and is, 
in many ways, very inconvenient. There were four hundred prisoners, 
about forty of whom were women. Both sexes sleep in common dor¬ 
mitories, no doubt to their further contamination. The only industry 
practised by the men is weaving, at which the utmost they could earn 
was five or six cents a day. The women worked at lace-making, by 
which they earned four or five times as much as the men. 

(b.) The prison of San Michele. —This prison is historic. Howard vis¬ 
ited it nearly a hundred years ago, but it had a history before, most in¬ 
teresting and instructive. Howard found over the door of San Michele 


236 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

this inscription: “ Clemens Xr, Pont. Max., perditis adolescentibus 
corrigendis instituendisque, ut qui inertes oberant, instructi, reipublicm 
serviant. An. Sal. MDCOIV, Pon. IV.” In English: Clement XI, 
Supreme Pontiff, [reared this prison] for the reformation and education 
of criminal youths, to the end that those who, when idle, were hurtful 
to the state, might, when better taught and trained, become useful to 
it. Intheyearof our Lord, 1704; of the Pontiff, the 4th. Within the prison, 
high up on a marble slab, inserted in the wall of the principal apart¬ 
ment, he found this—as he rightly says — 11 admirable sentence :” 
u Parum est improbos coercere poena, nisi bonos efficias discipline.” In 
English: It is of no use to restrain criminals by punishment, unless 
you reform them by discipline. In this sentence Howard found, as all 
right-thinking men must find, the true aim of all just prison treatment. 
In the center of the room was hung up the inscription, u Silentium.” 
So that, as would appear, the silent system of associated labor, com¬ 
bined with a reformatory discipline, was inaugurated at Rome in the 
very beginning of the eighteenth century, that is, one hundred and sixty- 
nine years ago. One of the main agencies relied on to effect the de¬ 
sired reform of the prisoners was industrial labor and the training of 
them to the knowledge of a trade. Various handicrafts were taught 
and practised in the establishment, such as printing, book-binding, 
designing, smitliery, carpentery, tailoring, shoemaking, weaving, dyeing,, 
and the like. Surely Pope Clement XI must be allowed a place among 
the most enlightened rulers and reformers that adorn the annals of our 
race. On some points, the world might still go to school to him with 
advantage. That such a doctrine should have been taught and such a 
practice maintained in the seat of the Papacy at a time when chains, 
dungeons, and tortures were almost the only forms of public punish¬ 
ment in the rest of the world, is a marvel. Let honor be given where 
it is due. 

At tbe present time the prison appears to be of rather a mongrel 
sort—half cellular, half congregate. I found some four hundred pri¬ 
soners there, some of whom were working in cells, and others in common 
shops. 

§ 3. The future of 'penitentiary reform in Italy .—While engaged, in 
1871, in my mission of organizing the congress of London, it was impos¬ 
sible to devote much time or to go at all out of a direct line from one 
capital to another (my business being chiefly with governments) to 
examine prisons. I went to nearly all that fell in my way, but to 
scarcely any that would require any divergence to reach them. For 
this reason I had no opportunity of seeing any of the more recently- 
constructed and better-organized prisons of Italy, of which the number 
is considerable. Still, I left Italy, after a very brief sojourn, (for the 
business of my mission was completed Avithin twelve hours after my 
arrival,) with the best impressions and the best hopes for her future, in 
so far as the great interest of prison reform is concerned. Mr. Lanza, 
prime minister, and at the same time minister of the interior, who, in 
virtue of this latter office, is head of the prison administration: Mr. 
Cardon, director; and Inspector Beltrani, (I had not the honor of be¬ 
coming personally acquainted with the other inspector,) are gentlemen 
of great ability, large views, and an earnest devotion to this work; and 
they are nobly seconded in it by a royal commission, composed of emi¬ 
nent citizens, having special knowledge of the subject, and appointed 
expressly with a view to making a broad study of the penitentiary 
question, and proposing such reforms in the criminal code, the criminal 
laws, and the criminal administration of the country as, after sucli 


PRISONS OF BELGIUM. 


237 


study, they might judge desirable and expedient. On these grounds it 
is not too much to hope that at no distant day Italy will become a 
leader whom it will be safe to follow in whatever relates to the organi¬ 
zation and conduct of prisons, an interest which is beginning to claim 
its just place in human esteem, and to command the attention which 
is due to its magnitude and its importance. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN BELGIUM. 

§ 1. Belgian prisons .—Of these I inspected but three—the central 
prisons of Louvain and Ghent, and the city prison at the latter of these 
places. 

(a) The prison of Louvain .—This is the model cellular prison of Europe 
and the world. I paid two visits to it—one in 1871 and the other in 
1872, with an admiration which no words could exaggerate. Its design, 
construction, and administration, for a prison of its class and on the 
cellular plan, seemed to me to leave absolutely nothing to be desired. 
More than a year ago, at a public meeting in Xew York, I said, of this 
prison: 

I cannot close without a word of reference to the prisons of Belgium, which John 
Howard, a century ago, found worthy of praise. At present, however, I can only call 
your attention, for a moment, to the new model prison of Louvain, planned and built 
under the superintendence of M. Stevens, its director for ten years, but now inspector- 
general of prisons for Belgium, and a worthy successor in that office to the illustrious 
Ducpetiaux. The building itself, which is large enough to accommodate five hundred 
inmates, is of brick, with marble facings. It is simple, solid, and severe in its beauty, 
with nothing of that palatial look which is so common in our great prisons, and which has 
Always seemed to me wholly out of place in buildings devoted to the treatment of crimi¬ 
nals. But it is the inner “glcry thatexcelleth.” I had never conceived of anything, in the 
form of a penitentiary establishment, so admirable in organization, so perfect in admin¬ 
istration. Nothing seems to have been forgotten iu its construction, nothing overlooked 
in its rules, nothing omitted in the details of its arrangements. The system of im¬ 
prisonment is that known as cellular, of which, per se, I am not a supporter; but the 
•cellular system is here applied in a manner quite different from what I have seen it 
elsewhere. Each prisoner receives not less, on an average, than five or six visits a day, 
from chaplain, schoolmaster, director, trade instructor, or other officials, by whose 
ju'esence and converse the burden of solitude is lightened and made tolerable, aud by 
w r hose counsels, motives and encouragements to a better life are suggested and pressed 
upon the prisoner. The whole aim appeared to me to be the reformation of the criminal; 
to that all efforts appeared to be directed ; and the results are as extraordinary as they 
are encouraging. The prison has been in operation about twelve years. The recom¬ 
mittals to the old prison of Louvain averaged 70 per cent.; at present they are only 6 
per cent. This proves not only that criminals may be reformed, but that their reforma¬ 
tion depends less on organization and system than on the spirit of the administration 
and the men who conduct it. “ Where there is a will there is a way,” is a maxim which 
seems as true of the intent to change bad men into good ones, as of any other human 
undertaking. 

Of the above account, written after my first visit, I do not retract a 
word since the second. I will say no more of the prison, (though much 
might be said if one could enter into details,) "but must add a word in 
regard to its founder and first director, Mr. Stevens. He kindly accom¬ 
panied me on my visit to Louvain, and directed that every possible facility 
should be afforded me for observation ; an order which was obeyed to 
the fullest extent, though, from motives of delicacy, he abstained from 
making the round of the penitentiary with me. His heart is evidently 



238 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


still at Louvain, and indeed it is no less manifestly, in its every pulsa¬ 
tion, wholly and most intelligently, in this work of prison reform. I am 
sure he pursues it in his dreams, and to it his waking hours, “ from 
morn to dewy eve,” and even till night is far advanced in her dusky 
course, are given with all the freshness and ardor of a virgin love. 

The present director appeared to be able and efficent, not unworthy 
to have succeeded so distinguished a man as Mr. Stevens. 

(b) Convict prison of Ghent , (maison de force.) —It is just a hundred 
years since this prison was founded. It owes its existence to the genius 
and humanity of the Viscount de Vilaiu, a truly great man, who, in his 
conception of the nature, object, and processes of a true prison disci¬ 
pline, was fully a hundred years in advance of his cotemporaries. His 
prison was founded upon the idea of preventing crime by combating 
idleness, and of maintaining discipline by moral power instead of brute 
force; a grand conception, to whose perfect realization the world is 
even now slowly and laboriously working its way. Early in his vast 
and tireless visitations of prisons, Howard came to Ghent, where he 
found the prison fully organized under the guidance of its illustrious 
founder, with its numerous industries in active operation, with its ad¬ 
mirable discipline maintained almost wholly by moral forces, with 
its incomparable order and cleanliness, the whole a hive of busy indus¬ 
try, by which nearly all its expenses were paid, and, altogether, the very 
antipodes of the English prisons, from whose inspection he had just 
come ; it may well be supposed that his eye was delighted and his heart 
rejoiced. But more than this, his ideas were enlarged, and his purpose 
and courage strengthened ; indeed, his w T hole being received a new and 
mighty impulse toward his life-work. Howard was a different man 
from what he would have been but for the prison of Ghent, and it is 
not too much to say that he was, in some sense and to a certain degree, 
himself the creation of the great and good Viscount de Vilain. 

The prison of Ghent is of large dimensions, containing accommoda¬ 
tions for a thousand prisoners. It is on the radiating plan, having 
eight wings, five of which were already built in Howard’s time, and 
they remain to-day substantially as they were then. It is conducted, in 
the main, on the Auburn system, though it is partly also cellular, one 
wing being devoted to the treatment of prisoners on that principle. It 
was here, indeed, that the system which has become so widely known 
as the Auburnian had its origin ; or rather, as I conceive, it was first 
practised in Rome, and was the conception of Pope Clement XI. 

The director struck me as being an able, energetic man, of great ad¬ 
ministrative ability; and, withal, he is certainly a warm partisan of 
the Auburn as against the Peunsylvia system. 

(c) Detention prison and house of correction at Ghent, (ma ison de surete.) 
—On my second visit to Belgium I made a hurried inspection of the es¬ 
tablishment named above just as the day was fading into night. It is- 
a large, commodious, well-kept cellular prison, designed for two classes 
of prisoners of both sexes : 1. Persons arrested and awaiting trial. 2. 
Persons sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. 

§ 2. Juvenile reformatories. —I visited but one of these, that at Ruys- 
selede, near Ostend, which, however, is divided into three different de¬ 
partments, in three different localities, and forming, in effect, three 
distinct schools of reform—two male and one female—though all under 
the same head. The two for boys are at Ruysselede and YVynghene, 
within sight of each other; that for girls is at Beernem, two or three 
miles distant. I could wish that more time and space were at my com¬ 
mand for a description of this establishment, for it well deserves the 


REFORMATORIES OF BELGIUM. 


239 


amplest treatment. With, the solitary exception of Mr. Demetz’s agri¬ 
cultural colony at Mettray, it exceeds all others visited abroad, both in 
its management and its results; and in one particular, (to be hereafter 
mentioned,) it has the pre-eminence over Mettray and all other juvenile 
reformatories known to me in any part of the world. 

Ruysselede is the work of Ducpetiaux, perhaps his master achieve¬ 
ment; but he was ably seconded by a man of rare powers and aptitudes 
for the task, Mr. Poll, who was its first director, presiding over it from 
the day of his appointment, in 1849, to that of his death, in 1867, a 
period of eighteen years. 

The present director, Mr. Eugene Poll, is a sou of the late incumbent, 
whom he succeeded immediately on the decease of the latter. I was 
accompanied on this inspection by the Rev. Joshua Coit, secretary of 
the board of prison commissioners of Massachusetts. Though we had 
not the advantage of any official or even private introduction, the di¬ 
rector received us, not simply courteously, but with the utmost cordiality. 
He conducted us through every department of the establishment at 
Ruysselede, giving full explanations of all its parts and arrangements, 
and answering all questions with perfect frankness. 

The class of boys treated here are not criminals, properly so called 
but they are such as are in danger of becoming so—vagrants, truants, 
street beggars, and the like. The whole number received from the be¬ 
ginning is about 5,000. The day we were there the number was 522, of 
whom only two were in hospital, and one of them from a broken arm— 
a clear indication of the sanitary state of the school, and of the good 
care that is taken of the iumates. 

The institution is conducted on the congregate plan. The boys sleep 
in large dormitories, admirably arranged—as, indeed, every part of the 
establishment is—and kept in the cleanest possible condition. 

The labor is principally farm-work. The farm consists of two hundred 
and forty acres, nearly all under tillage. The kitchen garden contains 
* nineteen acres; but, indeed, a great part of the land seemed cultivated 
like a garden. The outbuildings and nearly all the accessories are ar¬ 
ranged and kept in the best manner. In short, this may be pronounced, 
in all respects a model farm. The stock consisted of 18 horses, 114 
cows, 7 bulls, 150 sheep, 70 large hogs, 80 pigs—all in the finest order. 

While the work is, as already stated, principally expended on the 
farm, there is also, particularly in winter, much mechanical labor, which 
is distributed through a considerable variety of trades, such as carpen¬ 
try, smithery, painting, varnishing, shoemaking, knitting, tailoring, 
spinning, weaving, straw-plaiting, &c. Very few purchases, com¬ 
paratively, are made for the establishment from the outer world, al¬ 
most everything required for consumption, outside or inside the body, 
even to the manufacture of the beer, which is there deemed a necessity, 
being produced and worked up on the premises. Thus, for example, 
the wool and flax needed for clothing is grown on the farm, and the 
boys spin, weave, and work it up into garments. The straw (so much 
as "may be necessary) is plaited and made into hats. The hides are con¬ 
verted into leather and manufactured into shoes. Stockings are knit 
from the wool clipped from their own sheep, for winter use, none being 
required for the summer. And so on to the end of the catalogue. 

This extraordinary thrift, as our New England people would call it, is 
the cause of the existence of a fact which, so far as known to me, is 
wholly unparalleled elsewhere in the history of reformatory institutions. 
Reference is here made to the fact that the reform school of Ruysselede 
not only pays all expenses, including those of the administration, but 


■240 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


actually realizes a net profit every year of some thousands of francs. 
In 187i the gain was 3,000 francs ; four years previously it was 10,000. 
This result is the more remarkable inasmuch as a considerable number 
of the boys are too young to do much toward earning their support, and 
conscientious attention is given to the scholastic instruction of all. 

The ages of admission are from seven to eighteen; in exceptional cases, 
boys younger than seven are received. The term of committal is during 
minority. The average stay in the institution is about three years. 
Some, however, remain only three months, others from eight to ten 
. years. 

Mr. Poll claims that, substantially, all the children sent to Ruysselede 
are saved. The number who turn out badly is brought down to within 
a fraction of zero. 

The school at Wynghene has some fifty boys who have chosen for 
their calling a sea-faring life. Here, in a little lake, is a full-rigged ship, 
in which they are daily drilled in all nautical maneuvers and terminology. 
There are also, in a large apartment of the house set apart for the pur¬ 
pose, numerous models of vessels and craft of all sorts, with complete 
rigging, loaned by the museum at Brussels, to be used for the profes¬ 
sional instruction of the young sailors. 

For the rest, beyond the time devoted to this technical training, the 
boys in this department occupy themselves precisely as those do in that 
of Kuysselede—working on the same farm, but in shops at their own 
place. 

Our next visit was to the girls’ reform school at Beernem. This is 
conducted by a religious sisterhood, with a lady superior at its head, 
though it is under the general superintendence of Mr. Poll. There were 
two hundred and fifty inmates at the date of our inspection. We found 
it in no respect inferior to Kuysselede. The sister-in-cliief is quick, 
sharp, accomplished, and energetic in a remarkable degree. I said to 
her : u Sister, I was surprised to learn that the boys at Kuysselede earn 
their full support. I presume that this is not done by the girls P Very 
promptly she replied, and in a tone and manner indicating some little 
feeling : u The girls gain more than the boys ; their earnings amount to 
100,000 francs a year.” They are chiefly employed in lace-making, sew¬ 
ing, and laundry work. 

AYitli a sufficient number of such establishments as those at Kuys¬ 
selede, Wynghene, and Beernem established in all countries, the problem 
of the prevention of crime will be far on its way toward a satisfactory 
solution. How much cheaper , as well as better, would it be to save the 
vicious children than to punish them as criminal adults! 


OHAPTEK XXXYI. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN HOL¬ 
LAND. 

§ 1. Military prison of Leyden .—This prison is not for soldiers who 
have committed offenses merely against military discipline, but for 
such as have been found guilty of acts which brought them within the 
purview of the criminal laws of the land. The prison is a substantial 
structure, very plain, surrounding an open quadrangle, which serves as 
an exercise-yard for the prisoners, who, in companies of forty to fifty, 


CELLULAR PRISON AT AMSTERDAM. 


241 


spend an hour there every day. On one side of the hollow square is a 
building containing the offices, on another is the large dormitory build¬ 
ing, and on the two others are the shops, store houses, school-rooms, 
&c. There are eight large halls for dormitories, with very lofty ceil¬ 
ings, each having forty-eight small compartments or cells, in all three 
hundred and eighty-four, every one of which had an occupant on the 
day of my inspection, with an overplus of four prisoners. The arrange¬ 
ment of the cells is unique, and it struck me as excellent. They form a 
double row of iron boxes extending the entire length of the hall, with 
an encircling corridor not less than ten feet in width. The ceiling is at 
least twice as high as the sleeping-rooms, an arrangement facilitating 
the supply of pure air. The circulation of the air is further aided 
by the perforation of the iron which forms the front and top of the 
cells. Around the entire wall runs a water-trough for purposes of ablu¬ 
tion, each prisoner being furnished with a wash-basin of his own. nis 
towel hangs in his cell at the head of his bed, which latter is of straw, 
on an iron bedstead. There are but few articles of furniture in the 
cells, as the prisoners take their meals in the workshops. 

Among the industries pursued are shoemakiug, rope-making, tailor¬ 
ing, carpentry, smithery, painting, &c. The prisoners are allowed half 
of what they earn, and of this a moiety may be spent in the purchase 
of additional food and other comforts during their captivity, the other 
moiety being kept as a masse de reserve , to be paid to them on their dis¬ 
charge. The proceeds of the one-lialf of the labor, which goes into the 
chest, suffices to defray all current expenses, except the pay of the staff, 
who, being all officers of the army, receive their salaries in the same 
way and from the same land as other military officers. 

Every prisoner, if he did not know one before, is taught a full trade, 
whenever his sentence is long enough for the purpose, which is by no 
means always the case, as the sentences run from two months to twenty 
years. 

The proportion of prisoners wholly illiterate on entrance is 10 per 
cent.; most of the remaining ninety have a fair common education. 
Nevertheless, the whole body of the prisoners are required to attend 
school two hours every day. Three schoolmasters are employed, who 
devote each six hours a day to the work of instruction, and in this they are 
further aided by twelve convict assistants. All the branches of primary 
and more advanced common-school education are taught, to which are 
added, in the case of all prisoners desiring it, French, English; and 
drawing, particularly linear or mathematical drawing. A large room 
is appropriated to this last-named department. 

Except in the hospital, which was exceedingly neat and cosy, the 
prison presented a rather slovenly appearance, and could not be com¬ 
mended as particularly clean. Still, it has merits, and in some points 
might be advantageously copied elsewhere. 

§ 2. The cellular prison of Amsterdam .—I visited this prison in com¬ 
pany with Mr. Ploos van Amstel, seretary of the prison board, on a 
Sunday morning, at the hour of divine service, and heard, in low 
Dutch, what 1 presume, from its animated and graceful delivery, to 
have been a very eloquent sermon ; I say from the manner of its deliv¬ 
ery this was my surmise, for I could not judge from its effect on the au¬ 
dience, as every man of them was in his cell, and, to all appearance, with 
the exception of a few keepers, Mr. Ploos van Amstel, and myself, the 
orator appeared to be addressing himself to empty space. 

After the service, we inspected the cells and other parts of the 
prison, all of which were found in a state of order and cleanliness that 
H. Ex. 185-1G 


242 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


left nothing to be desired. It is a misdemeanants’ prison, where sen¬ 
tences range from a few days to two years. It has but two hun¬ 
dred cells, of which, at the date of my visit, one hundred and sixty 
had occupants; forty of these were women, who were accommodated 
in a ward entirely separated from the part of the prison in which the 
men are confined. 

The industries are brush-making, tailoring, carpentry, smithery r 
&c. The state only recives three-tenths of the earnings; the other 
seven-tenths belong to the prisoners. Four of the prisoners’ tenths are 
kept by the administration as a masse de reserve against the day of lib¬ 
eration ; the other three are at their disposal to send to their families, 
if they have any, or to spend in adding to the comforts of their prison 
life. 

With rare exceptions, the inmates can read and write when com¬ 
mitted; still, two schoolmasters are employed to give lessons in the 
cells, and thus to supplement by added acquisitions the education pre¬ 
viously possessed. 

§ 3. Detention prison at the Hague .—Accompanied, or rather con¬ 
ducted, by Mr. M. S. Pols, who had been a government delegate to the 
London Congress, I paid a short visit to the congregate prison, in which 
are confined prisoners awaiting trial and those sentenced to short im¬ 
prisonments. It is an old structure, built more than three hundred 
years ago, and seems chiefly distinguished for two qualities—mass¬ 
iveness and irregularity. As far as what is material was concerned, the 
prison is well kept, and everything was clean as soap, water, brush, 
and muscle could make it. But all praise must stop at this point. 
Prisoners to the number of one hundred and fifty were congregated 
there, doing almost nothing but corrupt each other by day, aud at night 
sleeping in common dormitories, without supervision, to continue the 
same business with increased vigor. Few have trades when they come, 
and fewer still, even of the sentenced, remain long enough to learn 
them. There is here an ample margin for reform. 

§ 4. Patronage .—The work of aiding liberated prisoners is well organ¬ 
ized in Holland, is conducted in an energetic manner, and is attended 
with fair success. There is a central organization, with its seat at Am¬ 
sterdam, called the Netherlands Society for Ameliorating the Moral Con¬ 
dition of Prisoners, which has forty branches scattered throughout all 
parts of thb country, and corresponding members in thirty-seven local¬ 
ities where there are no branches. The great aim of all these associa¬ 
tions, here as elsewhere, is to save the discharged prisoner from a re¬ 
lapse; but to this end the work of patronage is begun in the prisons 
themselves. In Amsterdam, and wherever branches of the central so¬ 
ciety exist, the members are permitted and are accustomed to often visit 
the prisoners confined in the jails of the kingdom, with a view to guide 
and influence them to good. Many of the societies have committees of 
ladies attached, who are active in this work, and whose labors are most 
acceptable and useful. When I had the honor to call upon the president 
of the parent society at Amsterdam, the venerable William H. Suringar, 
then over eighty years old, he showed me a thick folio volume, filled 
with closely-written manuscript from cover to cover, and containing the 
record of his personal visits to prisoners or their visits to him, in which 
are set down the main facts in each case. I cannot state the number of 
cases in that rare book, but am sure that it runs up into the thousands. 

§ 5. The Netherlands Mettray. —This is one of the model reformatories 
of Europe, and is situated at Arnheim, near Zutphen, distant five hours 
by rail from Amsterdam. It is on an estate named Bijsselt, formerly 


NETHERLANDS METTRAY. 


243 


the seat of a nobleman; now an agricultural reformatory colony, founded 
twenty years ago by Mr. Suringar, mentioned in the preceding section, 
and designed for vagrant and vicious boys, not yet criminal, but in im¬ 
minent peril of falling. It is a close imitation of the French Mettray, 
and is conducted on the strict family principle. There are ten houses 
for boys, each capable of accommodating fifteen. They are arranged on 
the two sides of a parallelogram, (five each side,) with the residence of 
the director at one end of the quadrangle, and the beautiful little church of 
the colony at the other. In the rear of the director’s residence are the 
workshops, school-house, &c. On either side of the quadrangle, but at con¬ 
siderable distance from the other buildings, are the picturesque res¬ 
idences of the sub-director and schoolmaster. A large and substantial 
farm-house, with all needful out-buildings, near but outside the main en¬ 
trance, completes the tout-ensemble of edifices belonging to the estab¬ 
lishment. The spacious square itself, around which all these structures 
cluster, has the appearance of an elegant garden, in the center of which 
is a charming flower-plot. The effect, to an observer on passing the iron 
gate which forms the chief entrance to the colony, is very pleasing, the 
coup (Vceil offering to his view what at first strikes him as a miniature 
paradise. 

1 was the bearer of a letter of introduction from Mr. Suringar to 
Mr. Schlimmer, the director of the colony, who has served in that ca¬ 
pacity from its origin, and has developed rare gifts and aptitudes for 
the place. The sub-director is a Mr. van Yeen, who has occupied the 
post for only two years, during which time lie has given indubitable 
proofs of special fitness for its duties. Mr. Schlimmer, knowing only 
German, committed me to the sub-director, who could speak French, 
and who conducted me through the establishment, explaining every 
part in the most satisfactory manner. 

; It has already been stated that the ten family houses are for fifteen 
boys each, and they were full, or nearly so, on the 7th of August, 1872. 
At the head of each household is placed a monitor, selected from among 
the larger boys, who acts as an under-officer during the day, and has 
sole charge of them at night. This system has been substituted for 
that of house-fathers—first, on economic grounds, and, second, because 
of the difficulty of finding suitable persons willing to serve the colony 
in that capacity. The interior of the family|liouses is simple and com¬ 
modious, but they were not remarkable for cleanliness, and the estab¬ 
lishment seemed to me to suffer sensibly from the lack of female care and 
influence. Each house has a dwelling-room, wash-room, and closet on 
the ground floor, and a dormitory above. The meals are prepared in a 
general kitchen, from which they are taken to the several houses, and 
each family breakfasts, dines, and sups by itself. 

The labor is chiefly farm and garden work, sixty-four acres constituting 
the farm. There is a kitchen garden of eight acres, and a smaller gar¬ 
den for fruits and flowers, with nursery, hot-beds, and conservatory, 
where the boys are taught and trained in all the mysteries of both the 
ruder and finer kinds of gardening. A considerable income is derived 
from the sale of flowers, as well in pots as bouquets, and also from that 
of fruits, large and small. The occupations of the colony, additional 
to farming and gardening, are shoe-making, tailoring, carpentry, cabi¬ 
net-making, smithery, painting, varnishing, baking, and, I think, a few 
others. As far as possible—and it is found possible in most cases—the 
boys are permitted to choose the calling they will follow. There is even 
a normal school and a military school in the establishment, where those 
whose tastes incline them to teaching or military life acquire the techni 


244 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


cal knowledge and training required for those professions. I was 
curious to know how many schoolmasters had been graduated from this 
seminary. The sub-director was unable to give the aggregate, but said 
that eight had gone out to be teachers during his two years 7 incumbency. 
One of these was on a visit to his former home when I was at Eijsselt. 
He was a stout, manly looking youth, and seemed greatly to enjoy this 
renewal of intercourse with his late comrades, ne reported himself as 
u doing well, 77 and as satisfied with his place and prospects. 

Only boys over nine and under fourteen are received; on an average, 
they remain two years at the colony; and their services, on discharge, 
are much sought after. Not more than two per cent., according to the 
best evidence—so Mr. van Veen stated—ever become criminals. Most 
of them would no doubt have followed a life of crime but for their 
training here. How noble and—let us not forget to say to people who 
do not love taxes—how cheap a charity this is, clearly appears from the 
fact that seven hundred and twenty boys have been admitted to its 
benefits, and five hundred and seventy-one have gone forth from it, to 
add to the productive industry of the state, instead of being spoliators 
and destroyers of its wealth, and no less so of its virtue. 

The appearance and demeanor of these lads impressed me most favor¬ 
ably. One never would have guessed that they had been little Arabs of 
the street. Except a few low and repulsive faces, the whole company 
appeared well-mannered, cheerful, respectable youths. Their manly bear¬ 
ing and quiet, orderly movements showed the care bestowed on their 
bodily training, and, by what I was told, their moral training bears a 
fair proportion to the physical. A profane or vulgar word (so I was 
assured) is seldom heard, even when the boys are by themselves. The 
officers have succeeded in forming a right public opinion among their 
■ eleves , which acts with great force, and, as a consequence, have created 
an esprit de corps which finds expression in such phrases as “We are 
the boys of Netherlands Mettray! We respect ourselves, and mean 
that others shall respect us. 77 

All the boys are well instructed in the several branches of a common- 
school education, and special attention is given to music. An hour is 
devoted daily to this branch by the whole school, not all at the same 
time, but in groups, according to their advancement. I was present at 
a class-exercise of this kind and observed how thorough and even scien¬ 
tific was the instruction given, and how intense the interest and delight 
of the boys in their work. 

Every Sunday, in the morning, the boys attend service in the parish 
church of the neighboring village; in the afternoon at the church in the 
colony. Other parts of the day, deducting what is given to suitable 
recreations and rest, are devoted to sacred song and various religious 
exercises. From 7 to 7.30 on each morning of the week-days a service 
of prayer is held in the church, which is conducted in turn by the 
director, sub-director, and schoolmaster, who reads a chapter and ac¬ 
companies the reading with such comments as he sees fit, and all uuite 
in singing a hymn, while one of the boys plays the organ. 

As a means of moral education much stress is laid on what is called 
the “ sentence system. 77 It has long since been observed that a pithy 
saying, a proverb, a fable, even a single word that infolds a pregnant 
meaning, often produces a happy and lasting effect upon the young 
mind. Charles Dickens, when on a visit to a reformatory in Massachu¬ 
setts, being called upon for an address, said simply: “Boys, do all the 
good you can, and make no fuss about it. 77 That curt, crisp sentence 
was better for the boys than would have been an hour of silver-tongued 


PRISON ADMINISTRATIONS IN FRANCE. 


245 


rhetoric. So the conductors of the Netherlands mettray have thought 
it good and helpful to make much use of such sentences as these, (some¬ 
times hanging them on the walls, sometimes giving them out to be 
learned by heart:) “He who seeks himself will not find God.” “A 
poor man he, who has nothing but money.” “He is a fool who lives 
poor to die rich.” “Labor has a golden bottom.” “Care for the mo¬ 
ments, and these will care for the years.” 

Whenever anything extraordinary takes place in a family, or when a 
boy makes himself notorious by his bad behavior, a sentence is applied. 
Thus, on the occasion of the death of one of the parents of a boy, a con¬ 
soling text or sentence is suspended on the wall of his dormitory. One 
day a boy was overheard using foul speech to a comrade. The sen¬ 
tence, “It is better to be dumb than to use the tongue for filthy talk,” 
was given to him, which he had to read to the company every morning 
for eight days. It had the desired effect. 

In a corner of the colony farm there is a secluded and beautiful little 
cemetery, where are interred the remains of twenty-three colons. At 
the head of each grave is placed a little painted board, with the name, 
age, &c., of the lad who sleeps beneath, and the mound surmounting 
the grave is planted with flowers. Near the center of the cemetery 
stands a large, spreading tree, with its thick branches drooping to the 
earth, beneath which the remains of Mr. Suringar were to be interred. 
Already, while I pen these sentences, in less than six months from the 
time ot my visit, the good man who founded this noble institution sleeps 
peacefully in his last, self-chosen resting-place. “The memory of the 
just is blessed.” That of William H. Suringar will be green and fresh 
in many a heai;t as long as the Netherlands Mettray continues its 
benign and beautiful work. 


CHAPTEli XXXVII. 

PERSONAL INSPECTION OF PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES IN FRANCE. 

§ 1. There are two distinct prison administrations in France—the pre - 
fecture of police and the ministry of the interior. The former has 
charge of the prisons of the department of the Seine, the latter of all 
the other penal establishments of France. Their jurisdictions and all 
their movements are as independent of each other as if they were on the 
two opposite sides of the English Channel. Mr. Lacourt is chief of the 
division of prisons for the department of the Seine, Paris; and Mr. Jail- 
lant, under the minister, of the division of prisons for the rest of France. 
I called upon both these gentlemen, and had a long interview with each, 
with a twofold aim—first, to gain information, and, secondly, to obtain 
the necessary authorizations to inspect the prisons within their respective 
jurisdictions. Tout lemonde had spoken to me of Mr. Jaillant as a per¬ 
son of rare qualities and worth, and I found tout le monde quite right in 
its estimate. I was profoundly impressed with the breadth of his intel¬ 
lect, the largeness of his heart, and his thorough devotion to the cause 
of prison reform; and the same impression was made upon me by his 
chief of bureau, Mr. Jules de Lamarque. Mr. Lacourt is also a noble 
specimen of humanity, a man of large intelligence and broad sympa¬ 
thies, and, like Mr. Jaillant, “well reported of” by his fellow-citizens. 
Mr. Jaillant kindly furnished me with a permit to visit prisons out of 
Paris, and Mr. Lacourt to inspect those within that city. His author- 


246 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

ization, which I give as a matter of curiosity, is in these words: “The 
directors of prisons in the department of the Seine are authorized to 
admit into those establishments Mr. Wines, who has been delegated by 
the American Government to organize an international prison reform 
congress, together with any friends who may accompany him, and to 
afford him all the information he may desire. Mr. Wines is recom¬ 
mended in a very particular manner to "the courtesies of the directors.’’ 

I inspected all the prisons of Paris; two central prisons, one male, the 
other female; and two (outside of the capital) for the detention of per¬ 
sons awaiting trial, and for prisoners convicted and sentenced for minor 
offenses. 

There are eight prisons in the city, viz : 1. The Grand-Depot of the 
Prefecture of Police; the Conciergerie 5 Mazas; Sainte-Pelagie; Saint- 
Lazare ; La Sante; the Grande-Roquette; and the Petite-Roquette. 

§ 2 . Before proceeding to any description of these establishments, how¬ 
ever brief, it seems proper, if not necessary, to give explanations of a 
few terms employed in the French criminal nomenclature, which, before 
going abroad, had troubled me not a little for the reason that I was un¬ 
able to comprehend exactly what they meant. I refer to the words 
inculpes, prevenus, and accuses. The equivalents of these words in 
English all designate persons charged with some offense ; but the exact 
distinction is difficult for us to grasp. Indeed, they convey tons nodistinct 
meanings, because there is nothing in our judicial processes to corre¬ 
spond to them. The inculpes , then, are persons who, having been 
arrested either on a warrant or flagrante delicto , (in the act of commit¬ 
ting a crime,) are conveyed, prior to a hearing, to some prison for safe¬ 
keeping until their examination takes place. The prevenus and the 
detenus are inculpes , who have had their first hearing, and have been 
ordered by the committing magistrate (juge instruction ) to be held 
for trial. But there is a difference between them. The detenus are pris¬ 
oners held for trial on a charge of misdemeanor, {delit ;) the accuses are 
prisoners held for trial on a charge of felony, {crime.) The two classes 
are taken before different courts for trial—the detenus before the 
tribunal of correctional justice, where the trial is by the judges 
alone 5 the accuses before the court of assizes, where they are tried by a 
jury. The account to be given of the prisons of Paris will be more 
intelligible for these short explanations. 

§ 3. The Grand-Depot of the Prefecture of Police. —This is a prison for 
persons who have been arrested by the police, but have not yet had 
their hearing before a committing magistrate, {inculpes.) It is a vast 
pile in one of the courts of the prefecture, with a capacity for 1,200 to 
1,500prisoners; but into it, I was told, are sometimes crowded 2 , 000 . I 
may remark, just here, that the committal and discharge of prisoners, 
not only here but everywhere in France, are made with perfect regu¬ 
larity. In every prison the director or keeper must have one or more 
registers, signed on each page by the prefect or some magistrate. These 
registers record the act of delivery of each prisoner, and, on the mar¬ 
gin, the date of his discharge, as also a copy of the decree, arrest, or 
judgment, in virtue of which it has place. It is thus easy to be sure of 
the legality of every imprisonment. 

The legal time of detention in the Grand-Depot is twenty-four hours; 
but such is the accumulation of business and such the pressure upon 
the time/Of the magistrates charged with the preliminary examinations, 
that prisoners are often detained here a week or more. I 11 the male 
department there are some fifty separate cells for the better class of pris¬ 
oners, and a somewhat less number in the female wards, whose inmates, I 


GRAND DEPOT-MAZAS. 


247 


was glad to observe, were altogether under the care of women. But 
the mass—and a seething mass it was of corrupt and corrupting 
humanity—were thrown pell-mell together. If the problem had been to 
create a sort of cosmopolitan exchange, where the most dangerous vil¬ 
lains, drawn to Paris from all quarters, could meet, become acquainted 
with each other, and lay plans for future crimes, the intent could 
not have been better carried out. A .hundred desperadoes, or more, 
are there to be seen in a single vast apartment—the scum of all 
crafts, the shame and terror of the city. The flow inward and outward 
is without interruption. The coming and going never cease. The move¬ 
ment is like that of a shuttle, that incessantly shoots from side to side 
of the growing texture. Indolent, suspicious, cunning, lovers of dark¬ 
ness because of the villanies that are sheltered by it, they are little to 
be feared when separated from each other. But here they are brought 
together by the law itself; they are kept in absolute idleness for days, 
or even weeks; they become acquainted; they organize; they plan; 
they know where to meet on the first moment of liberty. The young 
thieves learn from the old ones. They are taught the good strokes to be 
made* They are instructed in the best modes of operating, from the 
picking of a pocket to the breaking into a house. They learn the whole 
theory of crime. They are told where to find the safest receivers and 
the worst haunts. And so the army of crime is recruited more steadily, 
as well as surely, than were the legions of Napoleon by the most relent¬ 
less conscriptions. The children are, it is true, separated from the adults; 
but not from each other. On the contrary, they are confined in associa¬ 
tion, without supervision, in an adjoining apartment, where, it may readily 
be believed, the precociously wicked will exercise the greatest influence. 
I saw there, in one of the exercising-yards, a most piteous sight—some 
fifty boys or more, from seven years old to fifteen, all huddled together 
like sheep in a pen, some of whom, from the sobs and blood and angry 
tones and fresh-torn garments, had been engaged in a fearful fight. In 
the women’s ward, also, there is the same promiscuous association ; and, 
of course, the same effect of mutual contamination. The authorities 
aim to keep the lewd from the rest, but those most affected with this 
spirit, and therefore the most dangerous corrupters, are not always 
known to the police. Of what evils may not such contact be the cause'? 

§ 4. Mazas .—This prison is appropriated to the prevenus —that is to 
say, persons who have been placed by the examining and committing 
magistrates in the category of misdemeanants, and the trial of whose 
cases has been assigned to the tribunal of correctional justice. It is 
therefore a prison of preliminary detention mainly, though there are 
some prisoners here under sentence. It is a strictly cellular establish¬ 
ment, and may be said to be the gift of Pennsylvania to France. It is 
the chief fruit, or at least the most tangible, of the visit of de Beaumont 
and de Tocqueville to this country forty years ago. It belongs to the 
largest class of prisons, the number of cells being twelve hundred, and 
the mean population a little more than eleven hundred. I cannot un¬ 
dertake a complete description of this immense structure. Its exterior 
aspect is somber and gloomy to the last degree. Stretching its lofty 
walls of immense hewn stones on the side of the street opposite to the 
station of the railway of Lyons, it offers in its dismal appearance and 
its intense silence a striking contrast to the animation and bustle which 
surround it on all sides. The moment you are fairly Avitliin, the arrange¬ 
ment of the entire structure is apparent. The cellular system yields 
up its secret on the instant. A single glance tells the whole story. 


248 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


There are six vast galleries, twelve and a half meters* high, three and a 
half wide, and eighty long. Six enormous passage ways, radiating from 
the rotunda, separate the wings from each other. It is majestic, cer¬ 
tainly, but cold and saddening as well. A staff of seventy officers, under 
the director, consisting of a deputy, seven sub-deputies, and sixty-two 
overseers, here accomplish, day and night, a wearisome service; for it is 
unceasing. Clothed in a blue ^unic, on whose collar shines a silver star, 
and whose buttons have in the center an open eye, (symbolic of eternal 
vigilance,) surrounded by the words Prison de la Seine, the overseer 
X>asses and repasses incessantly from end to end of the gallery 
intrusted to his custody. He looks through the little hole in the 
door of the cells, fitly named judas ; lie stops if he hears any unusual 
sound; he sees everything, without being seen himself; turning me¬ 
chanically between iiis fingers the heavy key which opens all the 
doors, he glides rather than walks, and at night wears list slip¬ 
pers, that he may pass more quietly. For the most part, he 
is an old soldier, formed to habits of strict discipline, and familiar 
with all the severities of the camp. To look at him, one would 
say that he forms part of the prison itself. He is silent, like.it; he 
never smiles, and if he speaks, it is ever in a low tone. In passing 
through a vast cellular establishment like Mazas, one feels, unavoidably, 
as if he were in a sick-chamber. ’Tis an instinctive sensation, and not 
groundless, for moral, like bodily, lesions often partake of the character 
of morbid affections. By living constantly in the midst of prisoners, 
the keeper comes to look upon them as he does on other people; he feels 
neither horror nor pity. He is polite and even gentle toward them, 
partly, perhaps, from a kind of indifference, but also because he is ad¬ 
vised to such a conduct. But he is no less prudent than polite, and in 
retiring from a cell he always goes backward. He sees that the regula¬ 
tions relating to the prisoners, which are simple and easy to follow, are 
strictly carried out. At 5 o’clock in summer, and 0 in winter, the pris¬ 
oners are rung up by a bell in the rotunda. At the end of a half hour 
each prisoner must have his hammock rolled up and attached to hooks 
in the wall, and his cell swept and put in order; the doors are then 
opened and the night-vessels removed; at the same time the water and 
bread for the day’s consumption are distributed. At 8 the morning 
soup is passed into each cell in a porringer; at 3 the evening meal is 
distributed ; at 8 the bell rings, and the prisoner arranges his hammock, 
and makes his bed. This is the locking up. At 10 every light is put 
out, unless a special authorization is accorded by the director, who, in¬ 
deed, rarely refuses it when asked. During the day the prisoner works 
in his cell at some one of the industries carried ou in the establishment 
—plaiting jute-mats, making list slippers, sewing copy-books for school- 
children, making buttons and small iron chains, tailoring, shoemaking, 
working at his own trade, &c. The number of days’ work done 
at Mazas in a year is about a quarter of a million; the aggregate earn¬ 
ings not far from 100,000 francs; and the average earnings per man for 
each day of work 40 centimes, equal to 8 cents. The contractor is rep¬ 
resented in the prison by a foreman from outside, who chooses, by desig¬ 
nation of the director, a number of prisoners who, being more intelligent 
and attentive than the rest, are made chiefs of shops, wear on the sleeve 
a piece of red lace, communicate with their comrades in distributing 
work and giving directions concerning it, and thus enjoy a relative lib¬ 
erty, much desired and much envied. The least infraction of the rules- 


A meter is 39 inches. 



CONCIERGERIE-GRAND ROQUETTE. 


249 


costs the man thus promoted his strip of lace, sends him back to the 
ranks of the prisoners, and again locks the door of his cell, which the 
necessities of his service had required to be left open the whole day. 

Mazas is well guarded. The gratings are solid ; every door and gate 
is kept firmly locked ; the walls, of which, as in all French prisons, there 
are two, with a wide space between them, are thick and high $ the over¬ 
seers have their eyes wide open, and during the night sentinels are 
posted in the circling space between the two inclosures just mentioned. 
The element of power is ever in view here, and material force seems the 
chief reliance. And in one respect the success has been complete. Not 
a solitary escape has been effected in twenty-five years, and only one 
attempt to escape has ever been made. 

§ 5. The Gonciergerie .—This prison is destined to the reception of 
men and women to be tried by the court of assizes, (les accuses ,) and of 
sentenced prisoners who have appealed to that court against the judg¬ 
ment of a tribunal of correctional justice. It is an old prison, dating 
back hundreds of years, which, if its walls could speak, might reveal w 
deeds of oppression, cruelty, and torture, which would make the blood 
curdle. The Gonciergerie is an irregular pile, inclosed within the old 
structures of the halls of justice, (palais de justice,) with walls of ter¬ 
rific thickness and solidity, with gates and bars of massive iron, and 
interpenetrated through and through with startling and horrible memo¬ 
ries. As I was passing into the apartment where Maria Antoinette was 
confined as a prisoner of state, I was warned to be careful; but as the 
special point for caution was not indicated, and I was looking only to 
my feet, my head came into very unpleasant contact with the iron 
lintel over the door, which almost made me stagger. A gentleman at 
my side instantly remarked: “ Maria Antoinette bumped her head on 
that same lintel when she was brought in here.” The Gonciergerie is 
deep below the present level of the adjoining streets. Its interior has 
a sinister aspect—dark, gloomy, repellant. In certain of its passages,, 
lamps, kept burning at all times, give but a lurid light. Its yard re¬ 
sembles a well, whose sides bristle with points of iron, which prevent all 
scaling. There, until within a few years, were seen, sitting or walking 
along the wall, groups of prisoners aw r aiting trial in the court of assizes. 
But a cellular ward has now been provided for these, which surrounds a 
long rectangular court. In their place have been sent police prisoners, sen¬ 
tenced to a single day’s imprisonment. Their day is passed in this yard. 
They pass the night on mattresses spread on the floor of the room, and 
the crowd is said to be often so great that even thus space is wanting. 
What of evil may not a single day and night spent under such circum¬ 
stances accomplish t Is not the influence of depraved men, even for 
so short a period, enough to draw into the paths of crime an irresolute 
and feeble spirit? 

§ 6. The Grand-Roquette. —This is a depot for sentenced prisoners, whether 
their sentence is imprisonment in a central prison, in the bagnio at 
Toulon, or in a penal colony, in which case they are confined here after 
condemnation till their removal to their final destination 5 or to death, 
in which case they remain here to the day of execution, which takes 
place near this prison. The number of prisoners varies from four hun¬ 
dred to five hundred. This prison has a certain celebrity among crim¬ 
inals, for it is, so to speak, the vestibule of the guillotine. The system 
is that of associated labor by day, and cellular separation at night. 
The courts are large and airy ; and the discipline is more severe than in 
the other prisons of Paris. Every morning, as soon as it is fairly light,, 
the scene becomes animated. The heavy iron gate, which bars the 


250 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


entrance, is opened to admit a huge four-horse omnibus, which comes to 
convey to the railway the prisoners awaiting transfer. Before their de¬ 
parture barbers cut their hair in such manner that the skin of the 
cranium, appearing between the successive ridges, gives them a zebra¬ 
like appearance ; this is the distinctive toilet of the galley-slave. After 
this, the convict is stripped and a thorough examination made of his 
w^hole person. When this scrutiny is completed he is reclothed in a 
new prison garb, and his legs are fastened together by chains long 
enough to allow him to walk, but too short to admit of his running. 
Bracelets are next attached to the wrists with a key, under conditions 
which make it impossible for him to bring his hands to his head. The 
roll is then called; each convict, in replying to his name, must state the 
amount of peculium to his credit, which is placed in the hands of the 
conductor, and not given to him till his arrival at the prison to which 
he is sentenced. Conveyed to the railway station in a cellular omnibus, 
the convicts are placed in a car divided into eighteen separate compart¬ 
ments, which they may not leave till they reach their point of destina¬ 
tion. 

A sickening tragedy had but recently been enacted within the walls 
of the Graud-Koquette, when I visited it in 1871. It was the execution, 
the assassination rather, of the venerable archbishop of Paris and the 
president of the court of cassation, by those incarnate demons, the 
communists of Paris—two men without stain of any kind, and whom 
all the good revered and loved. I saw, with a melancholy interest, the 
cells in which they had been confined, and the spot on which they were 
murdered ; for, surely, it was nothing less or other than murder. With 
several others—a half dozen, or more, I think, of inferior rank and 
name, but as innocent as they of any crime against the state or against 
good manners—they were shot down as felons for whom the sun ought 
no longer to shine, or the earth to yield her fruits. From their solitary 
cells they w T ere conducted in silence down winding stairs, along length¬ 
ened galleries, through open courts, (where the unaccustomed sun¬ 
shine brought with it a gleam of joy to their wasted and weary hearts,) 
and between the massive double wall, to a remote and hidden corner of 
the prison. Here they were ordered to stand with their backs toward 
a platoon of sixty soldiers, only a few paces distant. This order the 
archbishop positively refused to obey, but boldly faced the murderous 
iron rain. His companions fell instantly, on the discharge of the mus¬ 
ketry, but the archbishop did not; whereupon, at the word of command, 
two soldiers advanced and, with the muzzles of their rifles almost in 
contact with his person, discharged their death-dealing contents into 
his heart. I counted more than thirty places in the prison-wall just 
behind where the victims fell, on which the bullets had left their mark. 
Before his martyrdom the good man made this memorable declaration to 
his assassins: “ You may take my life, but, in so doing, you will but 
add new force to the principle which I represent.” 

§ 7. Sainte-Pelagie .—This is a house of correction, which receives men 
sentenced to terms of a year and less. To persons sentenced for political 
offenses a special ward is assigned, which is entirely separated from the 
others. The average population of the prison is from five hundred and 
fifty to six hundred. An old structure, reared more than two hundred 
years ago, it is but ill-suited to its present purpose. All the repairs put 
upon it—and they are plentifully renewed year by year—have little effect. 
It bends, as it were, under the weight of time, and a foul and repulsive 
antiquity invests it with an air and an odor that are anything but agree¬ 
able. The prisoners have no dining-hall; they eat in the open court 


SANTE-PELAGIE-SAINT-LAZARE. 


251 


there, also, they make their toilet, at a fountain. When it rains, they 
take their meals in a vast hall on the ground-floor, composed of a half- 
dozen or more chambers, whose partitions have been removed—with 
portions, however, of the thick walls left still standing, and offering, 
everywhere, obscure angles, into which the eye of the keeper pene¬ 
trates with difficulty. It is in the terrible associations of this hall that 
the language of villany is breathed in whispers. It is there that they 
boast of their high achievements in the past; there that they plot new 
acts of crime; there that they prepare, in advance, the good strokes 
they will make when the hour of their release is come; and there that 
they organize those combinations which keep the police ever on the 
alert, terrify honest people, and weary the tribunals of justice. A man 
enters after having committed a peccadillo; he goes out schooled to 
crime and ripe for the galleys. 

But labor is well organized at Sainte-Pelagie, and the workshops are 
hives of busy industry. You see there a ceaseless activity and good 
work done. With sleeves rolled up and hammer in hand, workmen are 
fabricating velocipedes; tailors, squat and cross-legged, are busily sew¬ 
ing garments for establishments of ready-made clothing; they make 
chains; they cut lamp-shades out of paper, &c. Until recently, 
they manufactured chignons at Sainte-Pelagie. That industry has been 
given up there; but I afterwards saw it practised on a large scale in the 
central prison of Meluu. The hair, bought from doubtful heads, gath¬ 
ered little by little, from all quarters, drawn out by the comb, wound 
round cards, thrown into the street and collected by the hook of the 
rag-picker, is assorted by colors, divided according to the length, cleansed 
in a manner that scarcely increases its attraction, and fastened by the 
hands of prisoners on silkeu threads. Thence, when massed and ar¬ 
ranged according to the rules of art, it goes to the Rue de Rivoli, iu 
Paris; Regent’s street, in London ; Broadway, in New York, and wher¬ 
ever else ladies, not satisfied with the covering of the head provided by 
nature, imagine that they can increase their charms by additions of 
such dubious origin. 

Sainte-Pelagie is surrounded by high and thick walls, on which are 
stationed at night a number of sentinels; but, despite this auxiliary 
surveillance, escapes can and do take place. On the 12th July, 1835, 
twenty-eight political prisoners managed to get away. When the 
director, in measureless fright, went himself to report the fact to his 
chief, the prefect of police, the latter dryly replied with a smile, u So 
much the better ; the republic is deserting.” 

§ 8. Saint-Lazare .—This is an exclusively female prison, devoted to 
the reception and treatment of several classes: 1. Women awaiting 
trial or sentenced correctionally for terms of one year and under. 2. 
Women sentenced to a central prison and awaiting removal, or to death 
and awaiting execution. 3. It is a house of correctional education for 
girls under age, sentenced according to the terms of the penal code, or 
placed there by way of paternal correction. 4. Prostitutes correction- 
ally sentenced as a measure of municipal police. For each of the above 
categories there is provided a distinct ward. The legal capacity of the 
prison is 1,150, but the prisoners are often in excess of that number. 

The prison is an immense pile, very ancient, with an old and decrepid 
look. Originally a convent, it has been turned into a prison. Good, 
doubtless, for the first of these uses, it is exceedingly ill-adapted to the 
last. With large courts, shaded by venerable trees, it has wooden 
stairways, dormitories under the roof, workshops, taken apparently at 
random, huge refectories, lofty walls, a chapel large enough, but plain 


252 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


almost to nakedness, and a neat little oratory, occupying the site of the 
apartment of Saint Vincent de Paul, which was the cradle of the relig¬ 
ious order of the Lazarites. 

For more than thirty years the prefecture of police has sought to 
change this state of things. It has protested, argued, pleaded tor the 
construction of a house destined to receive female prisoners under six¬ 
teen years, and girls in their minority, confined by wpy of paternal 
correction. It has no power, no budget; it can only supplicate. But 
the municipal council has turned a deaf ear; it had no money. Mean¬ 
while, magnificent barracks, splendid churches have been reared on 
all sides, but no house of refuge has yet lifted its walls where female 
children, who have fallen in a moment of forgetfulness, and whom it is 
necessary to save at any cost, and to give to marriage, to honor, to ma¬ 
ternity, may find a retreat for repentance and amendment, away from 
the purlieus of public prostitutes and professional thieves. 

What has been the result of this economy, which wastes souls to save 
dollars? Just such as might have been expected. Mr. Maxime du 
Camp, to whose interesting papers on the prisons of Paris in the Revue 
des Deux Mondes I acknowledge myself indebted for valuable facts and 
suggestions, and whose expressions I have not hesitated sometimes to 
translate, says that every young girl who enters Saint-Lazare as a cor¬ 
rectional leaves it vicious and corrupted to the very core of the heart. And 
he gives convincing proofs of this, in which, however, I do not propose to 
follow him; but the conclusion which he reaches is, that whoever becomes 
an inmate there is lost, unless saved by a miracle. These young female 
correctionals work in association, but sleep in separate cells. All the 
other inmates are together day and night. In the dormitories the beds 
are pressed one against the other, and in the workshops the chairs 
touch. It is enough to mention this fact; its corollary is but too 
obvious. 

At Saint-Lazare, in vast structures connected with the principal 
building, are found the general magazines and the bake-house of all the 
prisons of Paris. Day and night the ovens flame and the kneading- 
trouglis are in use. The average of bakings is thirty-two a day each, 
yielding two hundred and thirty loaves. The magazine for clothing is 
a place most interesting to visit. Under the direction of an active and 
intelligent woman, the shirts, sheets, socks, and caps are ranged in 
different compartments. Farther on you see strait-jackets of sail-cloth, 
buckled with seven straps, intended to restrain the resistance of the 
furious, or paralyze all thought of suicide in prisoners condemned to 
death. In another place are seen winding-sheets of heavy brown linen, 
in which prisoners are wrapped for burial, who have at length dropped 
the chains of this present life. In still another apartment are piled 
the blankets, waistcoats, pantaloons, and other woolen garments, which 
have to be protected against the injury of moths. All the linen, all the 
clothing worn by the prisoners of Paris, goes from this wardrobe and 
comes back to it again, when it becomes unfit for further use. Every 
year there is a general sale of the articles which are no longer service¬ 
able. Who would believe that the tattered garments which have been 
used in prisons have still a marketable value ? But so it is. The old 
linen is bought by the hospitals, which make from it an excellent lint. 
Paper-makers, finding there genuine hempen cloth, are eager to obtain 
it for the manufacture of certain fine kinds of paper best made from that 
material. It is sought also by railway companies, who give it to the 
stokers to burnish the brasses of their locomotives. The woolen rags 
are bought, cut up, carded anew, spun, and woven into those light 


PRISON OF LA SANTE. 253 

cloths which manufacturers know how to make up into garments, which 
are sold at low prices and yet yield fair returns. 

§ 9. La Sante .—This is the model prison of Paris, and is, without doubt, 
one of the best and most beautiful in Europe. It has been recently erected, 
at a cost of more than 5,000,000 francs. It was built under the immediate 
direction of Mr. Mettetal,a member of the National Assembly, a gentle¬ 
man of great ability and worth, and profoundly versed,from study, not from 
experience as a prison director, in penitentiary science. It will be worth 
while to go a little into detail in describing this prison, in order to present, 
in outline at least, a sort of tangible embodiment of the ideas to which his 
studies brought him. The prison covers about seven and a half acres 
of ground, is built in the form of a trapezium, and is entirely separated 
from all other buildings. The constructions are divided into two dis¬ 
tinct prisons, are built on two distinct plans, and are designed for two 
distinct classes of prisoners. One part of the prison is for the treatment 
of prisoners who have had their first hearing, and are awaiting trial, 
(prevenus ;) this is constructed on the cellular plan, like Mazas, and can 
receive five hundred inmates. The other part is for the treatment of 
convicted prisoners, who have been sentenced to correctional imprison¬ 
ment for terms not exceeding a year; it is composed of halls, workshops, 
common eating-rooms, and separate cells for sleeping; like the cellular 
portion, it has accommodations for five hundred. 

The part of the prison designed for the prevenus (those awaiting trial) 
consists of four wings, each pierced by a large nave or gallery, flanked 
on both sides by three tiers of cells. Each nave is lighted, partly by 
glass placed in the roof, and partly by a huge bay-window at the end, 
protected by iron bars. The chapel, placed in the circular building in 
which the four radiating galleries of cells terminate, communicates with 
the prison of the sentenced, ( condamnes ,) by means of an intermediate or 
connecting gallery, called the u hospital construction,” {bailment cle Vin- 
Jirmerie.) The rotunda is surmounted by a cupola covered with tiles, 
like the rest of the edifice, and on the two sides rise immense draught 
chimneys, which serve the double purpose of heat and ventilation. The 
prison for the sentenced, which occupies the narrower portion of the 
trapezium, is to the west of the cellular prison for those awaiting trial. 
The exterior avails of all these constructions are of immense square 
stones, cemented, the partition walls being in brick. The buildings de¬ 
signed for the accessory services are in the irregular courts between the 
wings, and are of hewn stone. Those for the use of the administration 
are at the bottom of the first court, or court of entrance. Here all the 
employes are lodged, without communication with the interior. Fifteen 
to t wenty industries—the making of mats, umbrellas, candle-boxes, &c.— 
are carried on in this great establishment, the prisoners in separation work¬ 
ing in their cells, while those in association labor in silence in common 
work shops. Thus, classification, industrial labor, cellular separation 
for the prevenus, association in work and separation by night for the sen¬ 
tenced—such are the elements of penal treatment, such the agencies of 
reform, employed in the mixed prison of La Sante. 

Each cell in this prison is 12 feet long, 0 feet wide, and 9 feet high, 
equal therefore to 648 cubic feet. So perfect is the ventilation that not 
the slightest disagreeable odor is perceptible even in those cells where 
the prisoners are confined day and night. 

Ingenious contrivances for overcoming grave difficulties and securing 
valuable facilities abound in this prison. To give an example: The 
altar in the chapel, which, as already stated, is in the rotunda, is so 
placed that the officiating priest can be seen by every prisoner confined 


2t)4 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

in the four wiugs of the cellular ward, the door of his cell being set a 
few inches ajar and securely locked. At the same time the folding- 
doors of the congregate part, which form the partition between the two 
prisons at that point, being thrown open, every prisoner in association 
has also a full view of the ministrant. This is but one among scores 
of such contrivances, all due to the genius of Mr. Mettetal. 

It cannot fail to have struck the reader that the tw r o penitentiary sys¬ 
tems, so different in themselves, in use at Mazas and Sainte-Pelagie r 
are united in the prison of La Sante; both of them, however, under 
greatly improved conditions. Here the prisoner sleeps on a real bed, 
which can be raised and fastened to the wall. The table is a Rap, sup¬ 
ported on an iron standard, with a hinge for letting it down. The chair 
is replaced by a stool. The floor of the cell is composed of oaken boards 
inlaid. A special chapel, or at least special church accommodations are 
provided for the prisoners of each faith, under each penitentiary system, 
viz: Catholic-cellular, Catholic-congregate, Protestant-cellular, Pro- 
testant-congregate ; and, in like manner, a miniature synagogue is con¬ 
secrated to the use of the few Israelites occasionally confined here. This 
prison is the only oue in Paris w^hich has a sheltered wash-house, built 
expressly for the purpose, where the prisoners, on rising in the morning, 
can perform their ablutions; a fact referred to, with keen sarcasm, by Mr. 
Hu Camp, as showing how slowly reforms are introduced, when they have 
to make their way against the good-will of the budget. The courts here are 
spacious; and in the workshops air and light enter without obstruction, 
and therefore in quantities to meet every necessity of health and com¬ 
fort. On this prison Mr. Hu Camp makes the following remark: u In 
presence of these two opposite systems, which are here placed side by 
side, under the eye of the same director, an experiment is in progress, 
whose results it will be easy to record, and w hich will afford essential 
aid to those w ho are in search of a solution of the penitentiary problem. 
From records thus made up may be determined, after a sufficient lapse 
of time, which system sends back to the tribunals the largest number of 
recidivists.” I must respectfully dissent from this opinion, and for the 
following reasons : 1. The prisoners of La Sante, subjected to the two 
systems, belong to essentially different classes, and their treatment has 
in view essentially different ends; consequently, there is a diversity in 
the premises, which would vitiate the conclusion. 2. The cellular sys¬ 
tem is applied, at La Sante, to prisoners a waiting trial; prisoners, there¬ 
fore, whose guilt or innocence has not yet been determined, and who, as 
a further consequence, are not under criminal treatment at all. 3. There 
is no difference of opinion among enlightened penologists as to the ap¬ 
plication of cellular separation to this class of prisoners ; all favor it as 
a matter of prime importance. 4. Even the correctionals at La Sante 
have, as their maximum, an imprisonment of only one year, and that of 
the greater part falls far below that limit. Cellular imprisonment for 
such short periods would furnish no data for conclusions relating to that 
species of imprisonment for lengthened terms. 5. There is a general, 
not to say universal, agreement among students of penitentiary science, 
that to give a sharp, energetic notice to first offenders, mainly with a 
view to deterrence, the best dose is a few months of strictly cellular 
confinement. 6. Experiments like that at La Sante, embodying the two 
systems, to furnish comparative results of real value, must be conducted 
under two conditions: a. They must embrace times of such lengths, 
and subjects of such a class, as belong to debatable ground, b. They 
must be applied by officers free from all prejudice in favor of the one 


PETITE KOQUETTE-CENTRAL PRISON AT CLERMONT. 2*55 


system or the other, so that their observations and judgments shall be 
absolutely impartial—a condition hard to be realized. 

I cannot close this account of La Sante without stating the strong 
impression made upon me by the intelligence and courtesy of the di¬ 
rector, as well as by the politeness of his staff, who vied with each 
other in the alacrity with which they answered questions, and, in every 
way, sought to promote the gratification of their visitor. The same re¬ 
mark will apply to the personnel of the other prisons of Paris. 

§ 10. La Petite-Eoquette .—This is a prison, or, speaking technically, a 
house of correctional education, for juvenile delinquents of the male sex. 
There are received into it prisoners of four classes : 1. Children under 
sixteen, arrested but not tried. 2. Children of the same maximum age, 
under sentence. 3. Children in transitu to agricultural colonies. 4. 
Minor children, against whom their parents have obtained a decree 
of correctional imprisonment. It is on the cellular system. Think 
of it! Babes, almost, shut up for weeks and months in a cell! 
They have even separate exercise-yards. They have hoops there which 
they trundle in the few square yards allowed them. But the 
place is too strait; the hoop strikes the wall after two or three revo¬ 
lutions, and the children, weary of this mere mockery of play, sink 
down upon the ground to dream of some place of real amusement. 
Separation by day, separation by night, separation at meals, separation 
at work, separation in play time, separation always and everywhere, 
and that in the case of children, the very age when freedom, play, and 
motion are almost an essential condition of existence—certainly an 
absolute condition of healthy existence. It is the saddest. prison 
I ever saw; and ic would be intolerable if it were not for the “Pat¬ 
ronage Society for liberated juveniles of the department of the Seine,” 
to be hereafter noticed. Mr. Du Camp has well remarked that 
La Petite-Roquette is perhaps the most important prison in Paris, 
because its inmates are children whom it is necessary to snatch from 
crime, and to lift up to industry and virtue; and that therefore it ought 
to be managed on a different principle, and placed near Paris, on some 
large farm, where the children could feel the benign influence of the 
sun and the open air. 

§ 11 .The central prison at Clermont. —This is the largest female central 
prison of France; it is also the best conducted and the most successful. 
The site is magnificent. It stands on an eminence just outside the city, 
and commands a prospect as extensive as it is charming. The germ of 
the prison was an old castle of the middle ages, in which the first of the 
Bourbon kings was born. 1 was shown through the prison by the di¬ 
rector himself, Mr. Bailie, who explained everything with the utmost 
patience. The discipline I found equal to that of the Albany peniten¬ 
tiary. The order and cleanliness were most admirable. The floors of 
all the apartments, including the kitchen, were white from constant 
scrubbing. The tins, coppers, and brasses were scoured and burnished 
to the last degree of brightness. The prisoners’ beds were made of a 
mixture of wool and horse hair. The sheets were like snow, and the 
gray blankets had an unusually tidy appearance. To the question how 
often the sheets were washed, the director replied, “Just as often as 
they need it;” and their appearance showed that the answer was not a 
cover for official neglect, but the literal truth. In reply to another 
question, he said that the underclothing of the prisoners would be 
washed three times a day, if such a thing should be necessary to clean¬ 
liness. 

The women sleep in common dormitories (a'plan not to be approved) 
_seventy-five to one hundred in an apartment—with a sister in an 


256 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS* 


adjoining room, and a monitress, lierself a prisoner, in the dormitory 
with her fellow-convicts. There are four dining halls. Underneath 
each table, and forming a part of it, is a box of the same length, divided 
into as many compartments as there are occupants of the table—one for 
each—in which they keep their salt, pepper, and vinegar, together with 
whatever they may have purchased for themselves. But how do pris¬ 
oners come into the possession of money? I will explain. There are 
three kinds of sentence to the central prisons, viz, simplh imprisonment, 
reclusion, and hard labor. The last-named of these sentences, in the 
case of men, are, with a few exceptions and for special reasons, served out 
in the bagnio at Toulon or the penal colonies; but in the case of women, 
in the central prisons. Now, the net earnings of all French prisoners 
are divided into tenths. Of these tenths, prisoners sentenced, for the 
first time, to simple imprisonment receive five; those sentenced to re¬ 
clusion, four; and those sentenced to hard labor, three; but, in all cases, 
prisoners whose conduct and industry are exemplary in the highest de¬ 
gree may, in the discretion of the director, receive an additional tenth. 
Per contra, on each recommittal the prisoner’s share is reduced one-tenth; 
with this reserve, however, that the last tenth can never be taken from 
him, so that hope may never be wholly lost. On this point it may be 
further stated that, in addition to the portion to which prisoners are 
legally entitled, the contractor may allow to particular individuals such 
quantities as lie pleases, as a stimulus to diligence. The portion of 
earnings allotted to the prisoners is called peculium , and, in every case, 
it is divided into two parts—disposable peculium and reserved peculium. 
The latter, called masse de reserve , is kept for the prisoner to the day of 
his liberation ; the former is at his disposal for the purchase, during his 
imprisonment, of little comforts, additional to the fixed prison rations, 
such as tea, milk, butter, cheese, bread, &c. This is done at the cantine, 
already explained in ray account of the prison at Neufchatel. 

To the question, put to quite a number of the women, as we passed 
through the prison, whether they found the peculium an encouragement 
and stimulus, the answer was uniform, as it was prompt and emphatic, 
that they did. Some of the convicts at Clermont, who are engaged in 
the more skilled of the industries practised there, such as corset and 
dress making, earned for themselves 70 francs, equal to $15 per month. 
The director informed me that he had paid women, on their discharge, 
as high as 4,000 francs. But these, of course, are exceptional cases. 
After the above statements, it will not seem wonderful that the con¬ 
tractor takes these women and agrees, for the product of their labor, 
to defray the entire current expenses of the prison, save the cost of the 
administration, food, clothing, bedding, ordinary repairs, &c. It is thus 
seen that, leaving the administration out of the account, this prison is 
self-supporting. There is but one other in France—a male central 
prison—of which so much can be said; and which, according to the 
official reports, not only pays its way, but earns a small surplus. 

There is a department of this prison (and it exists in several others of 
the same class) of much interest, called “ the ward of preservation and 
reform,” (quartier de conservation et d’amendement.) On the arrival of a 
convict, an inquiry is instituted into her past character, conduct, and 
the circumstances of her crime. This inquiry is conducted by a kind of 
court, consisting of the director, sub-director, chaplain, inspector, and 
matron. If it is found that she had previously borne a good character • 
that she had never before committed a crime; that lier present offense 
is one not implying grave moral degradation, and that she has been 
reared in an honest and respectable family, she is placed in the ward of 


CENTRAL PRISON AT MELUN. 


257 


preservation and reform. This ward, at the time of my visit, had fifty 
inmates. It had then had an existence and a history of six years. Of 
one hundred prisoners who had been discharged from it, not one had 
come back. Its inmates are as much separated from the rest of the 
convicts as if they were confined in different prisons. 

On our round we visited, as a matter of course, the prison school, 
where were a hundred women engaged in the several exercises of read¬ 
ing, writing, and calculating. A more quiet, well-behaved, industrious 
set of pupils I never saw. A sister told me that they were very quick 
in mastering the difficulties of arithmetic, and of their progress in pen¬ 
manship I had ocular proof. A girl who could scarcely scrawl a few 
letters when committed, wrote an excellent engrossing hand, and there 
were others not much behind her. The conditions entitling prisoners to 
the advantages of the school are : good conduct, sufficient intelligence, 
and an age not exceeding thirty-five years. 

There is a library at Clermont of 700 volumes, not large considering 
the size of the prison ; but, owing to constant occupation, the prisoners 
did not appear to have any great amount of time for reading at their 
disposal. However, seats are provided in the exercise-yards, and it is 
permitted to either walk or sit during the daily half hour passed there. 
Such as choose may devote this time to reading. The prisoners are 
often read to by the chaplain or a sister during meal time. They have 
also a good deal of time on Sunday, during which they either read or 
listen to reading in the workshops. 

Some interesting statistics were furnished me for 18G9, as that had been 
a normal year, which 1870, the year of the Franco-German war, was not. 
The average prison population for that year was 736. There remained 
in prison at the end of they ear 661, of whom were sentenced to simple 
imprisonment 379; to reclusion, 70; to hard labor, 215. The net product 
of the prisoners’ labor was 223,224 francs ; gratuities paid prisoners by 
contractor, 6,631 francs; total, 229,855 francs. Peculium of prisoners, 
including contractor’s gratuities, 93,975 francs ; contractor’s share of net 
earnings, 137,880 francs; total, same as before. Judged by the num¬ 
ber of "punishments inflicted, the conduct of the prisoners must have 
been remarkably good, the average being but a small fraction over one 
a day. They were distributed thus: To prisoners sentenced to simple 
imprisonment, 650; to reclusionaries, 52; to hard-labor convicts, 107; 
the number of prisoners in the first class being 379 ; in the second, 70 ; 
and in the third, 215. A remarkable feature of this exhibit is that the 
prisoners who are sentenced for the lowest grade of offenses commit 
twice as many breaches of discipline, in proportion to their number, as 
those convicted of the next grade, and four times as many as those sen¬ 
tenced for the highest grades, and that a similar disproportion exists be¬ 
tween the number of disciplinary offenses committed by the two last 
named of these classes. The conclusion from which would seem to be 
that the worst criminals make the best prisoners, on the principle, per¬ 
haps, that u practice makes perfect.” 

Although, as already explained, there are three kinds of sentences to 
the central prisons; yet, as far as treatment is concerned, these distinc¬ 
tions are nominal. All prisoners work together in the same shops, sleep 
in the same dormitories, and are in all respects subjected to the same 
regime. 

§10. Male central prison at Melun .—This is one of the best and most 
successful, both economically and morally, of the French prisons. 
It had seven hundred inmates at the date of my visit. In cleanliness, 
order, discipline, and material effectiveness, it seemed almost perfect. 

H. Ex. 185-17 



258 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


It lias fourteen large workshops, arranged on the two sides of an im¬ 
mense building, with a wide hall running through the middle from end 
to end, from which you enter the several shops, in each one of which a 
different trade is carried on. I never saw workshops more conveniently 
arranged or better ventilated. The industries appeared well organized 
and effectively conducted. The moral appliances are evidently better 
here than in most other prisons of its class, for while the average re¬ 
lapses in the central prisons exceed 40 per cent., at Meluh it is less than 
20. Every morning there is held, in a room called the pretorium, a 
prison court, composed of the director, sub-director, inspector, chaplain, 
and perhaps some other officers, where all offenders against prison regu¬ 
lations are arraigned, heard, and judged with the same strict regard to 
justice as offenders against the laws of the land are in courts of crimi¬ 
nal jurisdiction. This court is found, I think, in the central prisons 
generally, perhaps universally; it certainly is at Clermont. It is the 
feature most to be commended in the French penitentiary administration. 

The ward of preservation and reform I found at Melun as at Clermont, 
and with the same good results. There are also in this prison certain 
cells, called cells of repression, designed for the separate confinement of 
dangerous and incorrigible prisoners, as the others are for that of pris¬ 
oners of whose return to virtue good hope may be entertained. 

The director at Melun impressed me as being a man of extraordinary 
intelligence, ability, and force of character. 

§ 11. Departmental prisons at St. Omer. —I had a young friend at this 
ancient city, Mr. A. Corne, with whom I had corresponded for a number 
of years, who met me at Calais, where we first saw and embraced each 
other, and whom I accompanied to his official residence at St. Omer, 
where he held the position of sub-prefect of the department of Arras. 
He was a young man of rare ability and large attainments, evidently 
one of the coming men of France; but he has since passed away from 
earth, when only the first fruits had been gathered of what must have 
been, if his life had been spared, a full harvest of usefulness and honor. 

At St. Omer I inspected two departmental prisons, viz, a house of 
arrest and a house of justice. The first was a prison for persons arrested 
and held for trial before a correctional tribunal or a court of assizes, ( les 
prevenus et les accuses.) The building is old, ill-arranged, badly venti¬ 
lated, and, in the basement-story, damp and unhealthy; though we have 
worse prisons in America. The prisoners are in common rooms by 
day and common dormitories by night, being thus in association the 
whole time, with every opportunity for mutual contamination. The sec¬ 
ond was a larger as well as less ancient structure, designed for persons 
sentenced to an imprisonment not exceeding three months. It was un¬ 
dergoing extensive repairs, and promised to be, when these were com¬ 
pleted, a fair prison of its class, but still highly objectionable on the 
ground of its common dormitories. The labor, as in the French prisons 
generally, is let to a contractor, ( entrepreneur .) The contractor assumes 
the obligation to furnish the supplies of food, clothing, and other neces¬ 
sary articles, at such a price, for a term of three, six, or nine years, and, 
in part payment, he has a right to the labor of the prisoners, but no 
right of control over them, or of interference with the discipline. He can¬ 
not even introduce an instructor or foreman, distinct from the personnel 
of the administration; he gets simply the product of their labor, having 
the right to introduce such proper industries as he pleases and the obli¬ 
gation to furnish occupation to the prisoners at all times. 

There is another and higher class of departmental prisons, called the 
house of Correction, to which prisoners are sentenced for a term not 


GENERAL REMARKS ON FRENCH PRISONS. 259 

xceeding one year ; but this is always at the chief city of the depart¬ 
ment, and, as St. Oiner does not hold that rank, I did not see it. 

§ 12. A quasi prison. —There is an establishment at St. Omer of a 
somewhat miscellaneous character, half prison and half something else. 
It is for the treatment of women and girls, and is under the care of the 
Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who are specially devoted to labors of 
this kind. It numbered, when I visited it, four hundred and fifty in¬ 
mates, made up of four different classes, or categories , as they are 
named by the sisters. The first category was of prostitutes, one hun¬ 
dred and eighty in number. Most of them were young, though none 
are excluded on account of age. They remain many years in the insti¬ 
tution, and it is claimed that the greater part become thoroughly 
reformed. For the support of this class the state allows 40 centimes 
(equal to 8 cents) each a day. The second category is much smaller, 
consisting of a select few from the first, who, because of the thorough 
confidence reposed in them, are in training to become sisters themselves. 
The third category is of girls, mostly from very bad families, who, hav¬ 
ing been convicted of some petty offense, are placed here for safe¬ 
keeping and reformation. For their maintenance the state also pays 40 
centimes each per day. The fourth category consists of younger girls, 
orphans for the most pait, either in fact or because of the desertion or 
vices of their parents. This is simply an industrial school, toward 
whose support the state pays nothing. It is a charitable institution, 
sustained by the gifts of the benevolent and the labor of the children. 
Each of these four categories forms a community by itself, entirely 
distinct from the others, having different buildings, refectories, schools, 
dormitories, &c. Their only industry is sewing—shirt-making chiefly— 
and their average earnings are about 35 centimes a day. 

This institution, so novel in its plan, appeared to me to be one of 
great merit and usefulness. 

§ 13. General remarks on French prisons. — a. The same character¬ 
istic—the same defect, I may say—struck me as inhering in the French 
as in the English prison administration ; indeed, it is not peculiar to 
those countries, but belongs to all, though in different degrees, and, I 
am grieved to add, to far too great an extent in my own. I refer to the 
greater attention given in them to material than to moral efficiency; 
the greater effort made to secure the former than the latter. The cen¬ 
tral prisons are models of order, regularity, labor, neatness, and discip¬ 
line ; but intimidation, deterrence, seems to be their chief aim. Material 
order is carried to its highest power; moral order seems rather languid. 
Little effort, little thought even, appeared to me to be given to reforma¬ 
tion. The system punishes, but does not amend. The administration, 
the legislature, the country feels this profoundly. Hence the warm in¬ 
terest taken by France in the congress of London. Hence, too, the 
important measure recently inaugurated in the national chamber under 
the lead of the Yiscount D’Haussonville ; I mean the creation of a great 
commission of thirty of the picked men of France, charged with the 
duty of studying anew the whole penitentiary question, find suggesting 
the reforms needed in the penitentiary system. I had the pleasure of 
witnessing the deliberations of that body during an entire sitting of 
three hours; and I feel persuaded that results of the highest value to 
France and the world may be anticipated from its labors. 

h. As the fruit of the state of things described in the last paragraph, 
relapses increase, and the number of recidivists multiplies, from year 
to year, despite the many ameliorations introduced within the last half 
century into the penitentiary regime. Such a result shows the ineffi- 


260 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


cacy of tlie principle of intimidation, when exclusively or even chiefly 
relied upon, and the necessity of introducing into the system, as a liv¬ 
ing element, the principle of reformation. To justify what I have said 
as to the increase of relapses, 1 cite from a work on the Prisons of 
France, by Pastor E. Bobin, an eminent French penologist and philan¬ 
thropist, who states that the percentage of recidivists in the central 
prisons had risen in four years (1864-1868) from 34 to N 42. The latest 
report of the administration seen by me, that for 1871, if my memory 
serve, (for I have not the document at hand,) makes the recommittals 
in those prisons 44 or 45 per cent. In the prisons of Paris the percent¬ 
age of relapses is still greater. In 1868, 60 per cent, of the prisoners 
arraigned before the tribunals of correctional justice had been convicted 
before, and of those arraigned before the court of assizes, 45 per cent. 
Mr. Du Camp observes that this large number of relapses proves that 
repression, intimidation, deterrence, is not enough; that it is neces¬ 
sary to repudiate the old lex taliones , (law of retaliation ;) that, if it is 
just to punish, it is essential to reform; and that to attain this end, 
offered to every civilized nation, the prison must be made a moral hos¬ 
pital. 

c. The wards of preservation and reformation, found at Clermont and 
Melun, have already been noticed. Others exist in the temale central 
prison of Haguenau, and the male prisons of Fonteorault, Poissy, 
Eysses, and Gaillon. The name given to this institution, ward of 
preservation , as noticed by viscount D’Haussonville in the report with 
which he introduced into the chamber of deputies his proposition for a 
penitentiary commission, suggests a pregnant reflection, viz: That, in 
the judgment of the administration itself, the simple fact of an impris¬ 
onment in these establishments is likely to add to the depravity of their 
inmates. This, continues the viscouut, is a sad confession, but one 
which it is necessary to weigh carefully, without reproach to the admin¬ 
istration, whose good faith and zeal it attests. 

d. The dietary of the French prisons appears to have been brought 
down to the lowest standard, and is scarcely sufficient to meet the average 
necessities of the prisoners; certainly not of those whose appetite is 
strongest. This fact is noticed by Mr. Du Camp, who says that the food 
furnished to the inmates of the prisons of Paris is not sufficient for all, 
and that some would suffer from hunger if the peculium did not enable 
them to make some purchases at the cantine , which is found in every 
French prison. The cantine is an establishment belonging to the con¬ 
tractor, there being but one contractor allowed in any of the central 
prisons. The average proportion of the earnings assigned to the con¬ 
victs does not vary much from four-tenths. The contractor reserves 
the right to sell to the prisoners, at prices fixed by the administration, 
supplementary articles of food—such as bread, meat, vegetables, &c. 
He thus pays the prisoner his peculium , and receives nearly one-half of 
it back again for commodities sold to him, in this manner retaking with 
one hand what he had given with the other. By such an arrangement 
the administration seems to confess that the rations are scarcely suffi¬ 
cient; and what makes this still more evident is the fact that those 
prisoners who are employed in the service of the house, ( service econo- 
mique ,) and therefore get no peculium , receive some sous from the ad¬ 
ministration, with which to purchase articles from the cantine. 

§ 14. Mettray.—La colonie agricole et penitentiaire at Mettray, five 
miles distant from' Tours, in the fertile and charming valley "of the 
Loire, was the only reformatory institution which the time at my com¬ 
mand permitted me to visit in France; and there I had the great happi- 


PENITENTIARY COLONY OF METTRAY. 


261 


ness and honor of passing two days as the guest of the good man who 
founded it—M. Auguste Demetz. To describe Mettray in detail, in its 
organization, workings, and results, covering, as its history now does, a 
period of thirty-four years, would require a volume ; w hereas a glance 
is all that my limited space will allow. At the meeting of the Universal 
Alliance of Order and Civilization, held at Paris in the month of June, 
1872, Mr. Demetz presented a paper under the title of u An Exposition 
of the System of Education employed at the Agricultural and Peniten¬ 
tiary Colony of Mettray, and of the House of Paternal Correction,” 
(maison paternelle.) This paper is in the nature of a report, which, as a 
matter of course, gives the latest as well as the most authentic infor¬ 
mation relating to this world-renowned establishment. Not only shall 
I not hesitate, but rather regard it as a duty, to supplement my own 
notes and recollectious by the information afforded in this report, and 
in some other recent publications on the subject, notably those of Mr. 
Charles Sauvestre and Miss Florence Hill; and that without feeling 
obliged always to employ the ipsissima verba of those authors, or to in¬ 
cumber my pages with formal references or quotation marks. For a 
number of years the average population of Mettray has been not far 
from 700; at the time of my visit, August, 1872, it was 792. Of the 4,287 
children received at Mettray since its foundation, G47 were illegitimate; 
1,657 were orphans by the loss of one or both parents; 291 weye found¬ 
lings; 595 had step-fathers or step-mothers; of 381 the parents were 
living in illicit union ; of 889 the father, mother, brother, or sister had 
been in prison; and of 7 the father or mother had been sentenced to capital 
punishment. What a multitude of young immortals, almost without 
exception the children of poverty, misery, neglect, and crime ; of evil 
surroundings and evil influences, whose name is legion! What a fearful 
catalogue of exposures! How few and faint the chances of victory in 
such a battle; how almost certain the issue of defeat and ruin, unless 
some helping hand, strong to deliver, should be stretched out to the res¬ 
cue. It was the sight of these exposures, and the certainty of a dis¬ 
astrous issue in the greater number of cases, which caused M. Demetz 
to abandon a career that was opening to him the highest judicial honors 
of his country, and devote himself to the salvation of imperiled child¬ 
hood and youth. He traversed Europe to find a model, and found it in the 
Iiauhe Haus, near Hamburg, established six years before, by Mr., since 
Dr. Henry Wichern. It was tbe separation of the children into groups, 
called families, and tbe making of farm-work their principal occupation, 
which most struck his imagination and won his judgment in the Eough 
House. He chose the family principle as tbe basis of bis proposed establish¬ 
ment on a twofold ground—one having reference to the officers, the other 
to the children. Division into families, be considers, makes'superintend- 
ence more easy, direct, and kindly; more easy, because it extends over 
only a small number; more direct, because it brings responsibility home 
to one person ; more kindly, because its tendency is to awaken in tbe 
bead of tbe family, and bis assistants, the sentiments of sympathy and 
affection. Upon the children themselves be regards its influence as no 
less beneficial. Tbe authority exercised over them is paternal; they 
become attached to their house-father; and this mutual affection be¬ 
comes a moral force of incalculable power. Then, again, this division 
into families (such is bis mode of reasoning) facilitates the individual 
treatment of each child. Individualization is an indispensable element 
in reformatory treatment, which renders it, in tbe opinion of Mr. Demetz, 
a grave error to economize in the number of agents employed in tbe 
work. He bolds that tbe family is the supreme of moral forces which 


262 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


act upon the human race, and that every man is a reflection of the in¬ 
fluences in the midst of which he passed his earliest years. The power 
of example upon the young is omnipotent. Whefice can the child, 
reared by irreligious, disorderly, vicious parents, draw those moral 
principles which are the safeguard of all ? The family either kills virtue, or 
breathes into it the breath of life. The task proposed to himself by the 
founder of Mettray was to create a moral constitution in the criminals 
who became his wards, and to substitute for the family which ruined, a 
family which will save them. He acknowledges that it is a fictitious 
family which he gives them, but claims that it has all the solicitude, all 
the tenderness even, of a real family. The chief takes the title of 
father of the family, and has all the devotion implied in that designa¬ 
tion. 

The advantages of this division into families show themselves more 
sensibly from day to day. 31. Demetz thinks that disciplinary action 
and moral action have been, hitherto, too much confounded. A regi¬ 
ment may move at the word of command, a ship’s crew at the sound of 
the boatswain’s whistle; but recourse must be had to other agencies if 
our aim is to affect moral character. For this reason too many children 
must not be confided to the same person ; and the agents must be mul¬ 
tiplied, under penalty of simply rearing instead of educating. It is, so to 
speak, in single combat that we must wrestle with these young souls, if 
we would conquer their evil inclinations and kindle in them the senti¬ 
ments of honor and virtue. 

31. Demetz avers that he has taken for basis of the reformatory edu¬ 
cation of Mettray, the religious sentiment; for a bond of union, the 
family spirit; for order, military discipline—three elements, each strong 
in itself, but of immense power to hold man to duty, when combined and 
made to act in unison toward the same end. 

The chief industry at 3Iettray is agriculture. The device adopted for 
the colony is, “To improve the earth by man, and man by the earth;” 
and that principle is carried out to the fullest extent. To defend the soil, 
and to enrich it, is the mission to which the colons of 3Iettray are called. 

How well these brave youths have fulfilled the first part of this mis¬ 
sion the following facts attest: All the colons who were from seventeen 
years of age to twenty, joined the army the moment the French soil was 
invaded by the Germans in the late war, to the number of one hundred 
and eighty, and fought with unsurpassed bravery. 3Iauy died on the 
field of battle; many others were wounded; numbers distinguished 
themselves by acts of special valor; four were decorated with the rib¬ 
bon of the legion of honor, and nine with the military medal; and four 
received commissions as officers. Among those who received decora¬ 
tions, 3Iettray names with honorable pride one of her colons, aged nine¬ 
teen years, an under-officer of engineers, who, during the siege of 3Ietz, 
crossed the Prussian lines six times to obtain information, and report it 
to his general. 

As regards the second part of their mission, as named above, almost 
the entire population of Mettray is engaged in agricultural labors during 
the months of spring, summer, and autumn. A vast domain, composed 
of a number of farms, is cultivated by them. To save time and fatigue 
in going to and from work, the colons are, to some extent, distributed 
in different localities. The main body is at 31ettray, but there are two 
outlying establishments, to which the older boys are drafted, as their 
good conduct and trustworthiness merit such a distinction, for here they 
are under much less restraint, and live, in all respects, more like ordi¬ 
nary hired laborers on a farm. From one of these establishments the 


PENITENTIARY COLONY OF METTEAY. 


263 

boys come in and spend Sunday with the main body of the colons; but 
from the other only on extraordinary occasions. These outlying posts 
form a sort of intermediate establishment, similar to that at Lusk, 
under the Orofton convict system, and serve as a stage of provisional or 
preparatory liberty. 

Lut though the tdling of the laud is the chief employment at Met¬ 
tray, and is undoubtedly better than any other for moral training, yet 
industrial occupation, at a variety of trades, is also provided ; but these 
trades are all such as are required for the production of implements 
either for farm-work or for articles to meet other needs of the estab¬ 
lishment. Besides the shops for the manufacture of carts, plows, har¬ 
rows, rakes, &c., there are carpenters, masons, millers, tailors, sabot- 
makers, painters, glaziers, tin-workers, &c.; for the colony is almost 
wholly self-supplied. But all the colons, who work at these various 
handicrafts in the winter and such other times as may be necessary, also 
labor in the fields in summer. Thus they become master of two indus¬ 
tries, and can be employed alternately as wheelwrights and farm-hands, 
a fact which makes them extremely serviceable, and causes them to be 
much sought after by the neighboring farmers. 

As I have already said, there were seven hundred and ninety-two 
boys at Mettray at the date of my visit. They are divided into house¬ 
holds of fifty, each under the care of a superintendent, called the chief 
or head of the family, (chef de famille ,) and an assistant who has the 
title of the eldest son, (fils aine.) Thus are the ties of social affection 
re-established by a kind of adoption with a moral force that nothing 
ever destroys. These ties are so powerful, the attachment felt by the 
former colons of Mettray is so strong, that they return with joy to recount 
their successes in life. Every Sunday those who have found employ¬ 
ment on the neighboring farms, come to pass the day of rest at the old 
home, and to take part in the exercises of their comrades. I found 
things at Mettray precisely as described by Mr. Sauvestre, and there¬ 
fore gladly avail myself of some sentences taken from his account of 
the u System of Education.” He remarks : 

I will now try to give an idea of the mode of education adopted, at Mettray, and show 
the ingenious means and delicate precautions by which the hearts of its youthful inhabit¬ 
ants are touched and softened, and their ill-feeling, craft, and perverse instincts, which 
before menaced society, are converted into salutary and friendly forces. I have spoken 
of my arrival at the colony, across parks and gardens, and how I found myself in the 
middle of the square without having encountered a single barrier. I came again the 
next day, about the same time; it was during the play-hour, and the children were 
amusing themselves before dispersing to the workshops. There were no walls, nor 
ditches, nor inclosures of any sort, nor even any guards. The games were all in full 
swing, when suddenly a bugle sounded; at once play was stopped, and at another 
bugle-call the children divided themselves into companies, according to their work. 
Then the band began a joyous strain, and the different groups in military style marched 
past the heads of families, led by their foremen. Here are agricultural laborers, gar¬ 
deners, wheelwrights, millers, shoemakers; and others on their way to the school. When 
all had tiled past, the musicians hastened to put away their instruments and join their 
several gangs. They go to their work as to a fete, with music to begin the day and 
enliven their departure; and come rain or sunshine, they bear it cheerfully and joy¬ 
fully. Everything is done that can make duty attractive and induce a constant habit 
of performing it. The children are not pushed forward with rudeness ; great care is taken 
not to bruise these poor young hearts, already frozen by neglect or withered by vice 
before they knew anything of life ; they are carefully tended, and led on by degrees to 
goodness with gentleness and trust. It is considered a great privilege to be in the 
band, and oue only earned by hard work and good conduct. 

Tlie heart first, the physical powers next, and then the intellect; this 
is the order at Mettray. 

If the colons of Mettray are the object of a constant solicitude while 


264 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


they remain at the colony, they are scarcely less so after they have left 
it. M. Dernetz holds that there is no good penitentiary system without 
patronage, since the good moral principles which may have been im¬ 
planted by the discipline of the prison, still weak and wavering, need 
some extraneous support to guard against the danger of a fresh fall. He 
considers that it is the same with the sicknesses of the soul as with those 
of the body, where the moment of convalescence is the most critical of 
all, and requires the greatest care. On this principle, the patronage of 
Mettray is kept up not only during three years, as is the custom in other 
similar institutions in France, but its duration has no limit; it is, in effect, 
a real adoption. Provision is made against whatever might be of a nature 
to compromise the future of the youths who have been discharged from 
the colony. Thus they need have no fear as regards want of employ¬ 
ment, in consequence of which the workman who has no resource but 
the product of his labor is too often exposed to all the suggestions of 
want and misery. Whenever the liberated colons are without work, 
they return to Mettray, where they know they are ever welcome, on 
the sole condition that they work with energy; for M. Dernetz regards 
it as of the last importance that they preserve those industrious habits 
which they formed at the colony. They are not permitted to leave until 
a new place has been found for them. So, also, when they are sick, they 
are received into the infirmary of the colony. Nor is it requisite to such 
admission that the ex-colon be so sick as to make it necessary that he 
should keep his bed; it is enough that he be unable to devote himself 
steadily to work. M. Dernetz is of the opinion that there are indis¬ 
positions which compromise the future of the workman more than a grave 
disease. In such cases, the workshop is closed against him because he is * 
not well enough to labor, and the hospital refuses him admission because 
he is not sick enough to be nursed; but Mettray willingly opens its gate 
and extends to him the needed relief. 

Upon the whole, after the widest and most careful inspection which 
two days would permit me to make, I have no hesitation in saying that 
Mettray appeared to me the most perfect, the most complete, the most 
thoroughly wrought out, and the most effectively applied system of 
reformatory discipline that had ever fallen under my notice. The 
late eminent recorder of Birmingham, England—Matthew Davenport 
Hill—whose opportunities of observation were far larger than mine, 
likened Mettray to a great and beautiful work of nature, rather than to 
any production of man. Nor to one who has been there and seen the 
wonderful creation will this comparison seem much, if at all, ex¬ 
aggerated. The resemblance is found both in its gradual development 
and in the discovery of fresh perfections the more closely it is ex¬ 
amined. Everything about the establishment, whether in the labor, 
the discipline, the instruction, or the recreations—the farm, the work¬ 
shop, the school, the church, the playground, the dormitory, the infirm¬ 
ary—all, all, without exception, seemed to converge to one point, and 
to have been made to yield their tribute .to the great work in hand— 
the rescue and salvation of these young criminals, their restoration to 
society, with the power and the will to pursue a career of honorable, 
though, perchance, quiet and unheralded usefulness. The genius of M. 
Dernetz has shown itself equal to every exigency, every emergency of 
his work; and in its power of originating expedients to re awaken, 
almost to create virtue, though, being human, it must have a limit, 
it certainly has not yet reached that limit; for it is still teeming with 
contrivances to the same beneficent and godlike end. Facile princeps 
among reformatory men is the position readily yielded to him by the 


TRAINING SCHOOL FOR OFFCERS AT METTRAY. 265 

whole body of his fellow-workers. Let the laurel be worn by him whose 
merit has won it. 

And what has been the result of this great work? Mr. Berenger de 
la Drome, in his day the highest authority in France on penitentiary 
matters, says that, prior to the founding of Mettray, the proportion of 
relapses among juvenile criminals was 75 per cent. What is it among 
the eleves of Mettray ? Not more than 5 per cent, at the outside. Well 
does Mr. Sauvestre, in view of this state of things, exclaim, u Is not 
Mettray a living witness against the old doctrine of repression? What 
would these children have become, if sent, as had previously been the 
custom, to the central prisons, those educational establishments whence 
the inmates often go out worse than they came in?” The founder of 
Mettray has substituted education for punishment; to what saving 
effect may be seen even in the very imperfect delineation which has just 
been given. What precious fruits of the same kind might not our 
prisons for adults show, if education—meaning by that term not simply 
scholastic instruction, but a complete system of industrial, mental, and 
moral training—were combined with punishment, and reformation every¬ 
where made, as at Mettray, the real and supreme aim of the treatment! 

After completing my observations at Mettray, I said to M. Demetz, 
“ You have created the best reformatory in the world.” Promptly, aud 
with a beautiful modesty, he replied, “It is because I have had the 
best assistants in the world.” The answer was no doubt true, but not 
the whole truth; for the helpers of M. Demetz have been his own crea¬ 
tion, as well as every other part of the establishment. This leads me to 
speak, though it must be all too briefly, of a most interesting depart¬ 
ment of the colony, its preparatory school, (ecole preparatoire ,) as it is 
called. This right arm of Mettray was created even before the colony 
itself. After the original buildings had been completed, M. Demetz, 
impressed with the just idea that the task of changing bad boys into 
good ones* was not one to be committed to the first comers, spent an 
entire year, as he informed me, aided by his devoted colleague, the 
Count de Oonrteilles, in training some twenty young men to be asso¬ 
ciated with them as assistants in their work. This school, enlarged in 
its curriculum and its number of pupils, and embracing a three years’ 
course of study and training, has been kept up ever since. It is a regular 
normal school, specially designed for Mettray, but supplying assistants 
to other similar establishments. So essential does M. Demetz consider 
this school to the complete success of his work, that he has been often 
heard to say that if it were closed, the colony would be destroyed. It 
is through it that he obtains those devoted aud efficient sub-officers, for 
whom Mettray has ever been distinguished; and through it, especially, 
he secures that unity of sentiment and of action, so indispensable in his 
great work of moral transformation, whereby a desolate and barren 
wilderness is made to rejoice and blossom as the rose. How devoted 
his helpers are to his person and his work will appear from two simple 
facts which may be told in few words. M. Demetz had secured for one 
of his agents a place where the work was lighter and the pay larger, 
and was himself accompanying the young man to introduce him to his 
new employer. While on the way, overcome by a sentiment of longing- 
regret, he said: “M. Demetz, it is impossible for me to leave Mettray;” 
and despite all persuasions, back he went to his smaller remuneration 
and his harder, rougher work. The other fact is this: During the late 
Franco-German war, the live stock of Mettray—cattle, pigs, and horses 


Aud, a fortiori , bad men into good ones. E. C. W. 



26G INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

—liad been taken by the enemy; tbe revenues of tbe colony were in 
great measure cut off; and half the members of the staff* had felt it a 
duty to give themselves to the military service of the country. The 
half who remained, after consulting together, went in a body to AL 
Demetz, and said: “ Sir, we know your embarrassments, and will gladly* 
do double work and accept half pay till the state of things shall im¬ 
prove. 7 ’ M. Demetz thinks, and rightly no doubt, that such devotion 
could be secured only through the ecole preparatoire , and that mere 
chance employes would be incapable of such self-sacrifice. Mr. Hill, 
after a visit to Mettray in its earlier years, gives his impression of the 
agents in this strong language: “The founders have breathed their 
own earnest benevolence into the hearts of their coadjutors. Seldom 
have I felt so deeply interested as in the hours I spent with these 
amiable and intelligent young men. Their devotion to their employ¬ 
ment, their perfect knowledge of all the principles on which the institu¬ 
tion is founded and of the best means for carrying these principles into 
effect, their enthusiastic attachment to the generous men to whom 
France and the world owe this noble establishment, the kindness evinced 
in their demeauor toward their wards, and the grateful spirit in which 
their notice of these poor lads was received, left me no room to doubt 
that I was among realities, not surrounded by mere shows and forms.” 
Every recent visitor at Mettray will agree that the venerable recorder 
of Birmingham has as truly described the agents of to-day as he doubt¬ 
less did those of twenty-five years ago. 

I am unable to state what proportion of the current expenses of the 
colony is met by the labor of the colons; certainly not the whole, as at 
the reform school at Ruysselede, Belgium. M. Demetz says that some 
persons allege that Mettray is too dear. To this he replies, first, that 
Mettray does a great deal of good; and, secondly, that, in the matter 
of economy in charity, there are cheap purchases that ruin, as there are 
costly ones which enrich. It is the unusually large proportion of agents 
which has made the cost at Mettray high, as compared with other 
French reformatories ; but it is to that also that the large percentage of 
reformations is chiefly due. The motto of Air. Demetz on this subject 
is, “Reform as cheaply as you can, but reform .” 

On the same premises as the colony, but in no way connected with it, 
AI. Demetz has organized an institution as novel in its plan as it is 
beneficent in its scope and action. This he calls a house of paternal 
correction, ( maisonpaternelle.) An unhappy father, v T ho foresaw nothing 
but ruin for his son, one day said to AI. Demetz: “You have created 
an admirable institution for rescuing from vice the children of the poor; 
can you do nothing to save those of the rich?” Instantly his fertile 
mind conceived the idea of the maison paternelle. This is, in fact, a col¬ 
lege for the reception and treatment of those sons of the upper and 
wealthier classes, with whom, because of their idleness or insubor¬ 
dination, the ordinary appliances of college discipline can accomplish 
nothing. Before AI. Demetz founded his institution, which might be 
named a college for insubordinates, expulsion from the ordinary college 
was almost the only severe measure that could be employed. But so 
far from being a terror, it was often welcomed by the idle youth as a 
relief from what was felt by him as an iutolerable burden. "When one 
of these youths was reminded by a professor that, if expelled from one 
college, he could be received into no other in France, his prompt reply 
was, “So much the better; I shall then have a vacation without end.’ 7 
The system employed in the maison paternelle is that of absolute isola¬ 
tion, each student having two cells—one for study, the other for sleep— 


MAISON PATERNELLE OF METTRAY. 


267 


with a small exercise-yard adjacent. After being placed in this estab¬ 
lishment, he continues his lessons the same as at the college from which 
he has been temporarily removed, under competent professors obtained 
from the neighboring college of Tours. He sees none of his fellows, and 
feels no evil influence from their presence. Thus, left wholly to his own 
reflections, he retires within himself, and, generally, from one to two 
months is found a sufficient time to subdue his spirit, to change his 
habits, and to restore him to the institution from which he came, the 
joy and pride, instead of being, as before, the grief and shame of his 
family. Nothing is found so efficacious in conquering idleness as the 
discipline of the maison paternelle. Labor, which has been an object of 
aversion, becomes there a necessity and a consolation to such a degree 
that books are taken from the students as a punishment for negligence, 
and the want of occupation so weighs upon them that they soon beg to 
have them restored. Their studies are thus pursued without interrup¬ 
tion, and with greater regularity, because free from all distractions, 
than under the ordinary conditions of scholastic life. 

On the arrival of a pupil M. Demetz exhorts him to a quiet and obe¬ 
dient behavior, assuring him that he has no quarrel with his person, 
but only with his faults. He says to him: “Your god-father has an¬ 
swered for you before God; I answer for you to your family; show 
yourself docile, and you will have another friend to love you; resist, 
and you will be subdued.” 

The youth knows perfectly that his family has given all its authority 
into the hands of M. Demetz, and that if, after the first trial, he again 
fails in duty, he will be brought back to the maison paternelle and subjected 
to a discipline far more rigorous than before. As the feebleness of the 
parent is too often the cause of the evil to be cured in his son, M. 
Demetz says that as soon as the latter is convinced that he can no 
longer count upon impunity, he performs with promptness and alacrity 
every duty required of him. It is at the moment when the college 
vacation begins that the discipline of the maison paternelle is most effi¬ 
cacious. When a pupil has been idle through the year, M. Demetz 
says to him on his arrival, “ You have rested while your comrades 
worked; it is but just that you should work while they rest.” More 
logical than one would suppose, the youth is apt to be strongly im¬ 
pressed by this view, and generally goes to work at once, with ardor, to 
make up for lost time. M. Demetz promises him that if he applies 
himself diligently to his studies, he will grant him some days with his 
family before his vacation ends and he is sent back to resume his place 
with his fellow-students at college. Fear on the one side, and filial love 
on the other, cause the inmates of the maison paternelle to return to 
their institutions animated, for the most part, with better sentiments 
and higher purposes. 

For eighteen years the maison paternelle has been doing the special 
work for which it was created. During that time more than nine hun¬ 
dred youths have experienced the wholesome pressure of its discipline, 
and perhaps—for it has long been well known to the young collegians 
of France, and has been a terror to the lazy and the vicious—a still 
greater number have felt the silent influence of its deterrent power. 
Of the nine hundred who have actually been within its chastening 
grasp, stern it may be, yet wisely loving, a number, not great in propor¬ 
tion to the whole, have been returned a second time; a very few have 
thrice made proof of its friendly severity. But the mass have been 
restored to a right mind and a right conduct by a few weeks or a few 


268 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS 


months of its paternal discipline; and the remainder, with here and 
there an exception, after a second or third experience. 

Some sentences were found written on the bottom board of a table- 
drawer in the room of one of the inmates of the maison paternelle, ad¬ 
dressed to the person who should succeed him in the occupancy of the 
room. They appear to have been penned by one who had shown him¬ 
self rebellious, to a certain extent at least; but they so clearly reveal 
the good effect of the discipline, even upon a stubborn youth, that I 
begged a copy of M. Demetz, who kindly caused one to be made for 
me. I append a translation, which cannot fail to interest the reader. 


Reflections found inside his table-drawer after the departure of student No. 112. 

Courage, my friend, courage! Expiate your fault, but do not abuse tbe pardon of 
your family. Take my advice, which is the result of experience. You will gain noth¬ 
ing by obstinacy, except to be reduced to the necessity of enlisting ; it is what I have 
done. I have enlisted for two years, whereas, if I had listened to my parents, I should 
still have been happy. For you, at least, there is yet time. Enter at once on the 
good way ; bear cheerfully your punishment, aud you may still be happy. Keep my 
words ever in memory, and think of the unhappy friend who gives you these few 
counsels before leaving the maison paternelle. Work, behave well, and you will one 
day be happy. It is an old companion in misfortune, on the point of departure, who 
gives you this counsel. Courage! A friend, 

D. M., 

Former pupil of the College of Tours,, in the belles-lettres class ; 

drummer in the band of said college ; enlisted volunteer. 

On the day of my departure M. Demetz had all the colons called 
in at noon from their farm-work, and had given orders that they should 
dress themselves in their Sunday attire and prepare for a formal review. 
No intimation had been given of this, and as we were lingering at the 
dinner-table, after the repast was ended, I was surprised to hear the en¬ 
livening strains of military music. Hastening, as we all did, to the front 
porch, my surprise was increased as I looked out upon the scene that 
presented itself to the eye. From the rigging of the large ship that 
graces the center of the hollow square, around which cluster the cottages 
of the colony, a hundred flags floated gaily in the breeze; and sur¬ 
mounting all, the colors of France and the United States, lovingly in¬ 
tertwined, waved from the mast-head. So may they ever wave, the 
emblem of peace aud good will, the pledge of a generous rivalry in 
labors directed to the progress of man in knowledge, virtue, justice, 
happiness, civilization ! Slowly approaching, with measured step and 
gallant bearing, to the sound of martial music—drum and bugle and 
clarionet—were seen the hundreds of boys who form the colony, every 
household with its own standard, each of a different color; the boysclressed 
in check trousers and blue cotton blouses, with caps and sabots; the 
musicians leading the column, and the tire brigade bringing up the rear, 
the latter armed with helmets, hooks, hatchets, and all the weapons used 
in combating the devouring element. Arrived in front of the mansion, 
the w T hole company halted and remained in position, w r hile M. Demetz, 
wtitli a few others, passed in front of the entire line. The review com¬ 
pleted, the column again took up its line of march and made the circuit 
of the square, when it was disbanded, and the boys separated to change 
their clothing and return to their accustomed labors ; and I, rejoicing 
in all I had seen, aud sorrowing that my stay might not be prolonged, re¬ 
traced my steps to Tours, and thence to Paris. 

§ 15. Patronage .—The work of aiding discharged prisoners has not 
taken root so widely in France as in England, Holland, Bavaria, and, 
perhaps, some other European countries; but as far as it goes it is well 


PATRONAGE IN FRANCE. 


269 


organized, and eminently successful. This is particularly tlie case with 
the oldest association of the kind in France, and possibly in the world— 
the “Patronage Society for Young Prisoners and Liberated Juveniles of 
the Department of the Seine.” The conception of that eminent publicist 
and philanthropist, M. Cli. Lucas, it was organized in 1833, and is, 
therefore, just forty years old; and it is as vigorous and active to-day as 
at any period of its long and useful career. A single fact will place in the 
clearest light its extraordinary success: Prior to the formation of the 
society, sixty-five out of every hundred of the juveniles discharged from 
the Roquet te relapsed and were rearrested within a few months after their 
release, and of the whereabouts and destiny of twenty-five more nothing 
was known; whereas now the relapses and recommittals have been 
brought down to between five and seven per cent., a result mainly, if 
not solely, due to the wise and efficient labors of the association. The 
aim of the society, as stated by its able and accomplished secretary, M. 
Victor Bournat, in his last report, is: “To save the child who has 
committed one, or, perchance, several offenses, without knowing 
their gravity, and who sees all doors, sometimes even that of the pater¬ 
nal dwelling, closed against him ; to receive him into a house, which 
thenceforth becomes his family-home ; to provide for him a little outfit 
of clothing; to find for him a place in some workshop, with a good mas¬ 
ter, where lie may commence or continue an apprenticeship; to watch 
over him till the moment when he shall become able, by his labor, to 
provide for himself; to re-animate and support his courage amid the 
many trials of his new position; to teach and guide him in the dis¬ 
charge of bis duties to God, his parents, and his master; to aid him, 
when he shall have become a workman, in starting a business for him¬ 
self; to assist him at the moment of his marriage; and, in short, to 
make of him another master, who shall be ready to receive and help 
those who, like himself, may have wandered from the path of rectitude.” 
A noble aim, and nobly carried into effect ! As intimated in this ex¬ 
tract, the society has a house—a home —into which it temporarily receives 
its wards on their liberation, and fits them out for their career as ap¬ 
prentices. It is a large establishment, well appointed and well kept in 
all respects, with offices, chapel, dormitories, wardrobe, gymnasium, 
&c. Here are kept the clothes of all the wards of the society appren¬ 
ticed in different parts of Paris; here all their washing is done; hither 
they come every Sunday to replace their soiled with clean garments, and 
to spend the day in receiving religious and scholastic instruction, in 
singing, in gymnastic exercises, in social intercourse with each other 
and with their patrons, and returning at night to the homes of their 
several masters. Here also they find a home, and a welcome, and all 
needed care when they are sick or out of employment. A master lately 
said to M. Bournat: “ I take care that the apprentice you furnished me 
never fails to be present at your Sunday re-unions; he always comes 
back more gentle, more civil, more industrious.” I passed an hour at 
this establishment one Sunday morning, and left it filled with admira¬ 
tion and delight at the precious fruit yielded by this charity. 

The Protestants of Paris in 1869 organized an association under the 
nameof “Societe de Patronage pourles PrisonniersLiberes Protestants,” 
of which Pastor Robin is the active secretary, a man of large views and 
large heart, who is thoroughly devoted to this work. He has just issued 
his first report, which shows good and effective work. So far not more 
than five per cent, of the society’s wards have relapsed. The members of 
the society begin their work within the prison walls, where they labor 
assiduously and successfully to give a right turn to the thoughts and 
purposes of the prisoners. 


PAET FIFTH. 

LES SO NS-SUGGEST IONS-RE COMMENDATIONS. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

The congress of London was fruitful in important and valuable les¬ 
sons. I do not propose an exhaustive treatment of this point, but sim¬ 
ply, in a single concluding chapter, to offer a few hints toward the in¬ 
auguration, in the several States of this Union, of a prison discipline 
more rational, humane, and reformatory, that is to say, more Christian, 
than has heretofore been, or is now, generally applied in the manage¬ 
ment of imprisoned criminals. 

§ 1. The first thing taught by the congress, and that vhich lies most 
upon the surface, is, that principles have a value denied to systems. 
The congress developed all shades of opinion on the question of sys¬ 
tems. It was unanimous, or nearly so, on the question of principles. 
Mr. Stevens, of Belgium, one of the ablest, most enlightened, and 
most zealous of the partisans of cellular separation throughout the 
whole period of imprisonment, and Count Sollohub, of Russia, who 
holds that the isolation of man, or even the imposition of an obligation 
of perpetual silence, is a contravention of the divine will, can yet cordi¬ 
ally unite—did, in point of fact, unite—in a common declaration of 
fundamental principles; principles which must interpenetrate and give 
vitality to every system, or it will remain, cold, dead, barren. The rea¬ 
son of this is obvious. Systems are but methods, processes ; principles 
are living forces. Systems may change, do change, must change, with the 
climate, soil, territorial extent, manners, customs, institutions, traditions, 
prejudices of different countries; principles are roots, essences, powers, 
without which here is neither life nor energy iu any organization, physi¬ 
cal or moral. Systems are temporary and perishable; principles eternal 
and indestructible. Systems are human; principles divine. The former 
have their origin in the wisdom of man, which may err; the latter, iu 
the wisdom of God, which is unerring. Starting with the postulate, in 
which the whole world is now agreed, that a chief aim of prison disci¬ 
pline is the reformation of criminals, the essential principles which must 
guide, quicken, and render fruitful this great work, are : That hope must 
be early planted in the breast of the prisoner, and kept there as an ever 
living, ever active power; that the prisoner himself must be the chief 
agent in his own amendment, and that, therefore, his will must be 
gained to that end, and his active exertions enlisted in its furtherance ; 
that, while physical force is not to be excluded, moral forces must be 
made prominent, and be substituted for the former in all cases where 
such substitution is practicable ; that the feeling of self-respect and per¬ 
sonal dignity must be developed and cultivated in the prisoner to the 
utmost extent possible, and that, consequently, his manhood must be 
respected, and all insult and needless humiliation withheld from him ; 


PRINCIPLES SUPERIOR TO SYSTEMS—SHORT SENTENCES. 271 

that religion, education, and labor must be made to contribute, in 
harmonious combination, their powerful agency toward his moral 
regeneration; that both the power and the will to work, and so to 
earn and eat honest bread, when he is discharged from prison, must 
be imparted to him while he is still in prison; and that society has 
not done its whole duty to the criminal when it has punished 
nor even when it has reformed him, but that, after his liberation, it 
owes him the still further duty of watching over and caring for him ; of 
doing, in fact, all it may, to encourage him, to hold him to his good reso¬ 
lutions, and to prevent his return to crime. These, in altered phrases, 
are the principles adopted by the congress; principles in which the advo¬ 
cates of all systems united ; principles which may be applied, in their 
integrity and all their regenerative force, under the separate system, the 
congregate system, the social or the silent system, the system of shop- 
work or of farm-work. They may be applied, they must be applied, 
whenever and wherever the work of reformation is sincerely and earn¬ 
estly taken in hand; for they are principles which belong to human na¬ 
ture in every age and every zone. What results? The necessity for a 
radical and comprehensive change, in a direction to be immediately 
pointed out. The great controversy, among prison reformers, has been as 
to the superior excellence and efficacy of the separate system and the asso¬ 
ciated silent system, of which Philadelphia and Auburn stood forth as 
the representatives ; and the controversy has been waged chiefly on the 
platform and in the press, through speech spoken or written. Let the 
locality and the instrument of this controversy now be changed. As re¬ 
gards the former, let the hall of debate be replaced by the prison; and as 
regards the latter, let deeds be substituted for words. Let the partisans 
of both systems, of all systems, drop the war of words, and exert all their 
ability, all their energy, all their skill, all their resources of whatever 
kind, in broad, hearty efforts to apply the principles, in which all are 
agreed, to the work of changing criminals into honest men, spoliators into 
producers, drones into busy toilers in the hives of industry. Let all 
work in their own way and with tools of their own choosing, unchallenged, 
unmolested. I, for one, have no doubt that all will show good work. I have 
my own thoughts as to which will show the best; but I am perfectly 
willing to abide the issue, and will joyfully cast in my lot with those who 
are most successful in accomplishing the end, which all desire and all 
propose, with, I doubt not, equal sincerity and in all good conscience. 

Most of us in this country have, I am persuaded, undervalued cellular 
separation, which is good and useful in its proper place and function. I 
think it ought to be applied to all the arrested and indicted, imprisoned 
before trial. I think it may be usefully applied to first offenders as a 
short, sharp, vigorous notice, and with a view mainly to deterrent effect. 
And I am equally clear that it should form a first stage in any and all 
systems for the reformatory treatment of criminals of the higher grades; 
and that in that case it should be applied with a considerable degree of 
elasticity, so that it may be made longer or shorter within limits of a far 
wider range than is given to it in the Crofton system as now practised 
in Ireland. 

§ 2. No reform is to-day more essential to the introduction of a real 
and effective reformatory prison discipline than such a change in our 
criminal laws as will do away with constantly repeated short sentences 
for minor offenses, which are as constantly repeated by the same per¬ 
sons. I need not here repeat what was said in the official reports handed 
in to the congress from the different countries represented in it; nor 
what was uttered in debate upon the floor; nor the arguments so well 


272 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


put in the papers furniske'd by the Liverpool magistrates and by Mr. 
Barwick Baker. But one voice came from all quarters, which was, that 
these ever-recurring sentences of only a few days’ or a few months’ im¬ 
prisonment, inflicted scores, yes, hundreds of times, on the same indi¬ 
vidual for the same or similar peccadillos, constitute an evil of grave 
character, which requires the early and serious attention of the law¬ 
making power. No one put this matter more sharply, and it would be 
impossible to put it more truly, than Count Sollohub, in his report for 
Eussia, viz, that u not only do these short imprisonments for trivial 
offenses do no good, but they create criminals by profession.” One short 
imprisonment for such misdemeanors is well, but it should be a sharp 
and keenly-felt admonition, of a character to be really u a terror to 
evil-doers;” and with the understanding, very clearly imparted to the 
culprit, that a second offense, even though of no greater gravity than 
the first, would be sure to be visited with a far heavier and more pro¬ 
longed punishment. The sentence should then be made long enough 
for reformatory processes to take effect : and in this work, time, and a 
good deal of it, is an essential element; for idle, vagrant, and, in most 
cases, drinking habits are to be broken up, and replaced by those of 
steady industry and absolute sobriety ; in a word, the wliolebent and 
current of the life are to be changed. If it should be objected that a 
long sentence is out of all proportion to a trifling offense, the reply is, 
that is not the point. It is not a question of so much suffering for so 
much transgression; reformatory prison discipline rises far above such 
vindictive and fetaliatory considerations. It is a question, first, of the 
effective protection of society, but much more, of the salvation of the 
man; and whatever others may say, the man himself, on whom this 
saving work has been wrought, will thank you to the day of his death 
for any degree of kind and wise severity that may have been found 
necessary to that result. 

§ 3. There is a principle of criminal law, not yet accepted by legisla¬ 
tors, and therefore not incorporated into the criminal codes, but ap¬ 
proved by many of the deepest and wisest students of penitentiary 
science—practical men as well as theorists, those who have studied that 
science in the prison as well as those who have studied it in the closet— 
the introduction of which into our penal legislation would not only meet 
the objection mentioned in the last section, but greatly facilitate the im¬ 
portant reform there suggested. I refer to the imposition of indefinite 
sentences instead of time-sentences, under which;the prisoner would be 
released only on satisfactory evidence of reformation, and not as the re¬ 
sult of mere lapse of time. I have said that some of the best thinkers 
and workers in this department of social science have given their adhe¬ 
sion to this principle. Among these may be named Hill, Maconochie, 
and Miss Carpenter, of England; Despine and Bournat, of France; 
Guillaume, of Switzerland ; and Dwight, Sanborn, and Brockway, of the 
United States. These names are not the symbols of a dreamy fanati¬ 
cism ; they represent calm thought, careful inquiry, cautious and solid 
judgment; they are names of the highest authority in their respective 
countries, and some of them are known and influential far beyond the 
limits of the lands that gave them birth. Dr. Despine goes so far as to 
say that the application of this principle will become a necessity, whenever 
a really reformatory prison discipline comes to be generally introduced 
and pursued in sober earnest. Maconochie’s idea was peculiar. He did 
not propose the imposition of a sentence indefinite in form, but only in op¬ 
eration and effect. This sentence took the shape of marks; so many 
hundred or so many thousand good marks, to be earned by industry, 


INDEFINITE SENTENCES. 


273 


studious habits iu school, and general good conduct, as the condition of 
his release. But there was a further peculiarity in his system. In it 
marks had a financial as well as a moral value. He would give nothing 
to prisoners beyond bread and water and the roughest sleeping accom¬ 
modations, except what they earned and paid for. So his marks were 
made to represent money, as well as progress towards liberation. They 
were so adjusted that a prisoner, by the utmost diligence and careful¬ 
ness, the practice of which was thus made to spring from an inward im¬ 
pulse, could earn such a maximum number daily. A certain tale of these, 
say one-half or two-tliirds, must go to supply his bodily and mental ne¬ 
cessities, (for even his schooling had to be paid for ;) so that only the sur¬ 
plus, the savings, so to speak, counted towards his release. An inci¬ 
dental advantage, of the highest value, is obvious at a glance, as a re¬ 
sultant of this system. It taught the prisoner practically what econo¬ 
mizing is, and made him feel its necessity and value. He might, if he 
chose, spend the whole of his marks, that is, of his earnings, as he 
went along, in which case he made no advance towards a discharge, but 
became, by his oivn election , a prisoner for life; or he might deny him¬ 
self many little comforts and luxuries, in which case, on the other hand, 
the hour of liberty, the sweetest possession of man, was constantly ap¬ 
proaching, and that with comparative rapidity. What has thus far 
been said has been upon the assumption that the prisoner earned his 
maximum of marks. But there is a further and no less important view. 
If he was idle or disobedient, and only earned marks enough for his 
support, he made himself a life prisoner as effectually as if he had earned 
and expended the whole tale; and always, be it carefully noted, by his 
own free choice. Captain Maconochie was never permitted to apply his 
system in its entirety; prescriptive ideas and red tape forbade such free¬ 
dom of thought and action ; but the mere shreds of it, which were all he 
was allowed to employ, wrought, in cases without number, transforma¬ 
tions on JNorfolk Island which seemed little less than miracles; insomuch 
that he could say, in words of strictest truth—for the testimony to that 
effect is too strong and too respectable to warrant either doubt or denial 
— u I found the island a turbulent, brutal hell; Heft it a peaceful, well- 
ordered community.” 

I feel strongly inclined to favor this fundamental idea of the Macon¬ 
ochie plan, for it seems to me that very few criminals could come out of 
such a crucible without being purified and refined, at least to such a 
degree as to become fair citizens and inclined to live by honest toil 
rather than through depredations on the community. But Mr. M. D. 
Hill, who has written most and written best on this question, for he has 
written with a force of logic which has carried conviction to thousands 
of minds, and which no adversary has yet been able to meet—propounds 
the system of indefinite sentences pure and simple, that is to say, sen¬ 
tences terminable only on satisfactory evidence of reformation, never 
as the consequence of the mere flux of time. However consonant this 
position may be to reason and natural justice—and I believe the accord 
to be perfect, since, if the protection of society, as all men hold, is the 
end of imprisonment and its justification, there is the same reason for 
keeping as for putting a man in prison, so long as you are morally cer¬ 
tain that, if set at liberty, he will go out to prey upon honest people, and 
rob them of the quiet and the comforts to which their honest toil has 
entitled them—it is extremely doubtful whether society will, or could, 
ever become reconciled to so great a change on the sudden as that from 
determinate to wholly indeterminate sentences. lf^ therefore, the prin¬ 
ciple is ever to receive a practical application, it is likely that it must 
H. Ex. 185-18 



274 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


be under certain limitations; that the courts must assign a maximum 
to the duration of the punishment, leaving a discretion, greater or less 
in extent, to the authorities who are charged with carrying the sentence 
into effect. To this extent the principle is already measurably familiar 
to the thought and the practice of our own and other countries. It is 
the principle of all th6 sentences to our refuges and reform schools for 
juvenile delinquents, where it is applied with the best effect. It is ap¬ 
plied also, though to a less extent—for with us sentences are mostly dur¬ 
ing minority—to similar institutions in foreign countries, and notably to 
Mettray, tbe most successful reformatory in the world for young crim¬ 
inals, where, if I do not mistake, the director has almost unlimited dis¬ 
cretion. It exists in all countries where provisional or revocable liber¬ 
ation is practised, under the ticket-of-license system or otherwise. It is 
found in all those state prisons of our country where what are called 
commutation laws are in force—that is, laws which allow an abbreviation 
of the term of imprisonment, to the extent, in some States where the 
sentence is long enough, of one third or more of the entire punishment, 
and that without any power of revocation. So excellent is the effect of 
this remission, granted only as the fruit of industry, obedience, and 
good conduct, that it is generally regarded as being the greatest ad¬ 
vance in prison discipline ever made among us by any single measure. 
The same principle is applied in the sentences to the work-house on the 
state farm of Ehode Island, where a term of three years may be assigned 
by the magistrate for even trivial offenses, while the governing author¬ 
ity, the Board of Public Charities and Correction, is intrusted with the 
power of releasing a prisoner whenever it may, in their judgment, be 
done to his advantage and that of the community. The results in this 
case have not, I believe, been all that was anticipated, but it is thought 
that the disappointment is due to a faulty administration, the board 
not having as yet found the right man for the place. This principle 
Avas also similarly applied, for a year, to one class of female prisoners 
in the Detroit House of Correction, under Mr. Brockway, with the most 
encouraging results; but, unhappily, the supreme court of Michigan 
decided the law to be unconstitutional under which these iraprison- 
onments had taken place; not, however, because of the principle under 
consideration, but upon some other ground. 

So that it is not so much a new principle which is sought to be intro¬ 
duced into our criminal laws and administration, as it is the application, 
in a more comprehensive, well-adjusted, thorough, and effective way, of 
a principle already knoAvn, and whose value has been, to a certain ex¬ 
tent, tested and recognized. 

Undoubtedly before it would be safe and wise to give to this princi¬ 
ple the wide application proposed, even under the limitations which have 
been named, some very radical reforms must be introduced into our 
prison systems ; for it would be little less than madness to attempt such 
an experiment, without officers qualified to undertake it, or an official 
tenure permanent enough to conduct it to its normal issue. 

§ 4. Centralization in every branch of the public administration— 
that, for example, which embraces prisons, as well as others—may 
exist in various degrees. It may absorb all power; it may be wisely 
and duly tempered with local authority; it may be feeble and languid, 
the local overshadowing and dominating the general; or it may be 
wholly wanting, with the different parts of the system, like so many 
separate grains of sand, unconnected by any organic principle or cohe¬ 
sive force pf whatever kind. 

The last of these propositions describes the state of things gener- 


CENTRAL AUTHORITY-PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION. 275 

alfy —universally, indeed, as far as I know—existing among ns. To tlie 
best of my knowledge and belief, there is not a State of our Union in 
which the various institutions looking to the prevention and repression 
of crime constitute a unit, or even a homogeneous system, held together 
and administered by a central power. Yet, without something of this 
sort, it is impossible that broad, thorough, permanent, fruitful prison 
reforms should take place. 

As long ago as 1850, a parliamentary committee in England expressed 
the opinion, in reference to the county and borough prisons, that “ it is 
desirable that the legislature should intrust increased powers to some 
central authority f a reform not yet carried out in that country. Move¬ 
ments in this direction have been begun in several of our States, with 
more or less breadth of scope, and with varying prospects of success. 
I look upon it that, in any comprehensive re-organization of the prison 
system of a state, the creation of a central authority, having general 
powers of direction and control, is an essential feature. Without some 
such power, ready at all times for deliberation and action, there can be 
no consistent administration, no experiments conducted on any uniform 
plan, no wide generalizations, no establishment of broad principles of 
prison discipline, no application of such principles in the use of common 
methods; with it, all these things may be. Nor is such central and su¬ 
preme authority at all inconsistent with local boards acting in unison 
with it. But with or without local boards, either a general board or a 
general superintendent, seems to be essentially requisite, to the end 
that all the preventive, reformatory, and penal institutions of a state 
may be molded into one, harmonious system; its parts mutually an¬ 
swering to and supporting each other, the whole animated by the same 
spirit, aiming at the same objects, and subject to the same control, yet 
without the loss of the advantages of voluntary aid and effort, where 
such are attainable and of the right kind, and with the co-operation of 
local boards, if they should be deemed desirable. 

England, as before stated, is without such a system, so far as her 
county and borough jails are concerned, though possessing it in the 
management of her convict prisons. Switzerland suffers, as we do, 
from the jealousy and power of local administrations; while iu some 
other of the continental states of Europe, possibly in most of them, cen¬ 
tralization is in excess. 

§ 5. Another reform, equally essential to a genuine reformatory prison 
discipline, is the elimination of partisan politics from the control of our 
prisons, and the creation of a permanent administration for each. 
There is scarcely a State—Pennsylvania is probably the most conspicu¬ 
ous exception—in which political influence is not the dominating power. 
Too often the prisons constitute a part of the political machinery of the 
State, and, in their management, the interest of the convict and the 
community is sacrificed to the interest of the politician. This is the 
bane of our penitentiary systems. It lies at the root of most of the 
evils connected with them, and, in particular, it is the cause of that in¬ 
stability in the tenure of office and want of permanence in the execu¬ 
tive administration, which render improvement difficult and perfection 
impossible. The utility of party politics is freely acknowledged. Within 
its proper sphere it has a generous and noble function. But there are 
things which it touches only to mar. Beligiou is one of these; educa¬ 
tion is another; and surely the penal institutions of a state form a third, 
since they combine the characteristics of both, being at once, if they 
are what they ought to be, religious and educational establishments. 

An article framed by the Prison Association, of New York, was in- 


276 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


corporated into the amended constitution of that State by the conven¬ 
tion of 1867. The constitution, as a whole, was rejected by the people, 
and the prison article fell with the rest. At the session of the legisla¬ 
ture following that rejection, it was offered in the form of a joint resolu¬ 
tion, recommending its adoption to the people of the State, and passed 
the senate by a unanimous vote, but failed to receive the action of the 
lower house. The next winter it passed the senate again, with one 
negative vote, but was rejected by a small majority of the assembly. 
On the third trial, at the subsequent session, it passed both houses. It 
must receive a second affirmative vote by the legislature, with a new 
senate as well as assembly, after which it goes to the people of the State 
for their suffrage. There is little doubt that the popular vote will be 
favorable. But would its adoption be a reform ? I think so ; and one of 
the highest value to the cause of prison discipline in Ne w York, and, 
through the great influence of that State, in the whole country. It 
creates a board of five prison managers, to be appointed by the gov¬ 
ernor and senate, and to hold office for ten years, one vacancy to occur 
every two years. This board is to be put in immediate charge of the 
State prisons, and to appoint the princ ipal officers, viz, warden, chap¬ 
lain, physician, aud clerk, but to have no power of removal, except for 
cause, stated in writing, and after a fair hearing, that is, on impeach¬ 
ment. The warden, being responsible for the state and discipline of the 
prison, and to be held rigidly to that responsibility, is to have the sole 
power of appointment and removal of his subordinates, the agents who 
are to execute his will; subject, as a matter of course, to his general 
responsibility to the board. The managers ai;e to have no salary, but 
are to appoint a secretary, who will, it is understood, receive a compen¬ 
sation that will command the very best talent in the market. The 
board is invested, by the proposed article, with no direct power over 
the other pena or reformatory institutions of the State; but, as the 
intention of ts framers w r as to make, ultimately, the whole system a 
unit, it provides that the said board shall possess such powers and 
perform such duties in regard to all the other penal and reformatory 
institutions of the State as the legislature may from time to time direct. 

From the above statement it will be seen w'hat an immense advance 
would be gained to prison reform by the incorporation of the proposed 
amendment into the constitution of New York. The administration 
would be at once lifted out of the slough of politics, and made abso¬ 
lutely permaneut, except in cases w here incompetency or malfeasance 
should make the removal of the head necessary to the proper govern¬ 
ment and efficiency of the prison committed to his charge. At present 
the state of things is, almost everywhere in our country, quite the 
reverse of this. Both appointments and removals are made on party con - 
siderations chiefly, if not solely. Men are inconsiderately placed in office 
without reference to their fitness; and they are remorselessly removed 
from office as soon as they have learned—often before they have learned— 
their duty. Can it be expected that we should have effective service on 
such conditions ¥ Can it be expected that men will do their duty 
efficiently and honestly, who know that, despite their utmost diligence 
and fidelity, next week, or next month, or next year, their places will be 
taken from them and given to others ? Would mercantile houses, would 
banking and insurance companies, would railroad corporations, be willing 
to employ their agents on this plan i To ask such a question is to answer 
it. We complain of the inefficiency and corruption of our prison officials; 
yet we could not devise a scheme of administration better adapted to 
produce these evils than the one actually employed. Would not men be 


PREVENTIVE INSTITUTIONS. 277 

almost more than human who, under such circumstances, would do their 
duty faithfully and effectively ? 

Happily, the prison systems of the Old World are not burdened with 
this weight nor impeded by this obstruction. I made special inquiries 
upon this point, and satisfied myself that there is not a country in 
Europe in which political influence is felt as an evil, so far as prison ad¬ 
ministration is concerned. Nor was there anything so incomprehensi¬ 
ble to gentlemen connected with prison affairs iu those countries as this 
state of things among us. It was a perpetual wonder to them that 
anything could be accomplished in this department under such circum¬ 
stances, and especially that so much good work could be done as they 
freely gave us credit for. 

§ 0 . The machinery of our penal systems, if that is the right word by 
which to represent the series or classes of institutions designed to effect 
a diminution of crime, stands in urgent need of re-adjustment and reform. 
As this branch of the general question lies in my mind, the series should 
embrace five gradations, to wit, preventive institutions, juvenile reform¬ 
atories, county jails, houses of correction, and state prisons, with append¬ 
ages to each of the two last named, having the general character of the 
Crofton intermediate prison. It will be necessary to compress what I 
have to say on each class into a narrow compass. Before proceeding, 
however, to sketch the system, a single preliminary observation may be 
excused. It is this : As a preparatory step, laws ought to be enacted 
by which the education of all the children of the State should be made 
compulsory. It is far better to force education upon the people than to 
force them into prisons to pay the penalty of crimes, of which neglect 
or ignorance has been among the chief causes. 

a. Preventive institutions, strictly so named, are the first in the series. 
We enter into life with various proclivities, which may be developed 
and molded to virtue by education and the good examples and salu¬ 
tary influences of home. But to what dangers are those exposed who 
lack these advantages'? And what multitudes of children, neglected 
or abandoned almost from the cradle, are deprived of them, and hence 
are exposed to all the fatal consequences of that deplorable condition. 
If their first steps in the world are marked by a violation of the laws of 
society it is, most frequently, because they have no knowledge of those 
laws. Not a few of these unhappy beings never knew, and will never 
know, to what parents they owe the light. One-fifth of them are orphans 
in the full sense. Half the remainder have lost their father, a fourth 
part their mother ; and nearly all who have known a family have been 
dragged by it, either through example or direct incitement, to vice and 
crime, so that, in their case, the family relation is actually worse than 
orphanage. These general statistics, Avhich are repeated from year to 
year, in different states and in all countries, afford a full explanation of 
the precocious wickedness of these unfortunates, who are, in some sort, 
devoted, driven to crime by the circumstances of their birth or by their 
early surroundings, so that society, which lays its strong hand upon 
them the moment they disturb its repose, punishes them, in the 
greater number of cases, for faults which, in reality, are not theirs; 
faults for whose commission society itself, which inflicts the punishment, 
has a grave responsibility—graver than, perhaps, it is aware of, or is 
willing to admit 5 for, if it had been awake to its duty and been wise, 
it might have prevented these violations of its laws at a cost far less than 
it is obliged to incur in punishing them. It is precisely at this point that 
the proposition comes in—may I not say, that the duty presses itself 
upon the public conscience?—for the establishment of preventive institu- 


278 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


tions, by whatever name they may be called—orphan-asylums; news-boys’ 
homes; industrial, truant, or ragged schools; children’s aid associations; 
juvenile asylums, homes for destitute children, &c., &c. Institutions of this 
sort should be multiplied tenfold, a hundred-fold, throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. Into them should be gathered, to the last one, 
the children of whom I have spoken—fatherless, motherless, homeless, 
or worse than either, because their homes are but schools of vice, with 
the parents for teachers!—into these shelters and retreats should they 
be gathered to receive that mental, moral, religious, and industrial train¬ 
ing, not otherwise attainable by them, and thence to be sent out, in due 
time, to good places on farms or in the workshop, where they would 
grow into virtuous and useful citizens, adding to, instead of preying 
upon, the productive industry of the country. I could wish for time and 
space to develop the ideal of such institutions, as it lies in my thought, 
but can only, in the most general terms, express the opinion that all the 
arrangements in them should be such as to cultivate industrious habits 
and prepare their inmates for the stations they are afterward to fill. 
The kitchen, the wash tub, the sewing and knitting room, the workshop, 
the farm, and, above all, the school-room, together with such recreations 
as may be suitable to their years, should occupy the time of those who 
find a home there; and this home should be, though tidy and attractive, 
yet of the plainest character, the counterpart, as near as may be, of the 
homes of farmers or mechanics in moderate circumstances, such as they 
themselves will be likely to have when they become fathers or mothers, 
with households around them. 

Is the expense of such establishments made a point of objection ? I 
will reply to the objection by a short relation. In every district of Swe¬ 
den, a country far advanced in her school system, there is an officer 
called the et persuader,” whose duty it is to look after children without 
family, or whose parents are in prison. Those whom he persuades (and 
his methods, it may be believed, are somewhat summary as well as po¬ 
tent) are placed in special schools, where, instead of pests, they become 
useful members of society. An Englishman, visiting Sweden, asked 
a Swedish gentleman whether the care of the children picked up in the 
streets and highways was not costly? The answer was: u Yes, it is 
costly, but not dear. We Swedes are not rich enough to let a child grow 
up in ignorance, misery, and crime, to become afterward a scourge to 
society, as well as a disgrace to himself.” There ^is a whole volume of 
fact and philosophy in that curt reply. There can be no doubt that a 
judicious system of prevention , such as here proposed, would be the 
highest economy, for it would cut off the most copious source of adult 
crime, and thus effectually stop an incessant and tremendous drain upon 
the wealth of the state. 

b. The next class of institutions in the series is the juvenile reform¬ 
atory, intended, not like the preceding, for children and youths who 
are in danger of becoming criminals, but for those who have actually 
committed criminal acts. The constitution and design of this class of 
establishments are so well known, and their management, for the most 
part, so excellent, both in our own and other countries, that it is quite 
needless to enlarge upon them. All that I deem it necessary to do— 
and in this I would place the highest possible emphasis—is to urge 
their establishment in States where they do not now exist, and their 
multiplication in all. Most European countries are far better provided 
with them than we are, while in our extended territory and unprece 
dented demand for labor we have advantages denied to them for dis. 


/ 


REFORMATORIES—JAILS. 


279 


posing in a liopefal manner of those who have been made the subjects 
of their discipline. 

Establishments appropriated to young prisoiieirs are, beyond all contra¬ 
diction, the leading point in every penitentiary system. To reform the 
crimiual masses, it is with childhood that we must commence ; it is to 
the fountain-head that we must apply the purifying agencies. We too 
often forget that it is these insubordinate and perverted children who, 
at a later period, will form the generations of adult transgressors whose 
crimes will disturb and terrify society. 

It seems to me that there is great need of a class of reformatories or 
juvenile prisons for boys and young men too old for the ordinary re¬ 
formatory, yet too young for the state prison, though guilty of crimes 
ordinarily punishable by sentence to that class of prisons. An insti¬ 
tution of this kind, called an industrial reformatory, is now in process 
of construction at Elmira, New York. This experiment is of the highest 
importance to penitentiary science, and its progress will be watched 
with a lively interest by the friends of prison reform in this and other 
countries. 

c. The third class is the county jail. I have no hesitation in declaring 
the county-jail system of the United States a disgrace to our civilization : 
and there is no department of our repressive agencies in which the hand 
of reform is more imperatively needed. The great evil of the jail sys¬ 
tem is the promiscuous intercourse of the prisoners with enforced 
idleness, there being, in general, no classification, except that which 
results from an imperfect separation of the sexes, and no labor at all. 
From this unchecked association and want of employment it results 
that our jails are but schools, maintained at the public cost, for in¬ 
struction in vice, and for providing an unbroken succession of thieves, 
burglars, and profligates. The stripling who has been committed for 
vagrancy or some trifling offense, locked up without employment in 
company with accomplished villains as idle as himself, listens to their 
narrative of crime till he pants for the hour of liberty, that he may 
commence the same bold and, to his childish imagination, brilliant 
career. 

The county jail is now made not only a place of detention for prison¬ 
ers awaiting trial, but a place of punishment for minor offenses, to which 
persons are sentenced for periods varying from a day to two years, and 
that so repeatedly that many get the name of revolvers, on account of 
the frequency with which they come back. This class of prisons should, 
in my opinion, be limited in its functions to two classes of prisoners, 
viz: i. Persons under arrest and awaiting the preliminary hearing, or 
under indictment and awaiting trial. 2. Persons undergoing their pun¬ 
ishment for a first offense. Both classes should be subjected to the strict 
cellular regime; the first because their punishment, as already ex¬ 
plained in a former section, should be made strongly deterrent, a real 
intimidation, and, therefore, should be undergone in a separate ward ; 
the second, for reasons to be immediately explained. 

It is a principle of criminal law that an accused person is to be presumed 
innocent until he has been proved guilty. While there can be no doubt 
that society has the right to subject its members, under certain circum¬ 
stances, to preliminary detention, it is as undoubted a corollary from the 
principle just stated that the exercise of this right ought never to take 
on a penal character, and that the accused himself must be protected, as 
well as the interests of social order. The sole object of such prelimi¬ 
nary detention is to prevent escape and the possible defeat thereby of 
the ends of justice; consequently it is but a precautionary measure, 
which leaves untouched the ultimate question of guilt. It follows that 


280 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

the person of the accused is a deposit, confided to the magistrates 
pending the decision of that question, to be returned to society, if he is 
proved innocent, as pure and sound as when received. Hence all the 
care and consideration due to innocent citizens must be accorded to 
these persons, so long as the presumption of innocence remains in their 
favor. Hence, too, it follows that the accused and the convicted should 
receive a treatment materially different the one from the other, and that 
the prison for detention should be quite another thing than the prison 
for punishment. The Roman jurisprudence long ago distinguished be¬ 
tween the accused and the convicted, calling the former the hostage of 
justice , the latter the slave of punishment It also distinguished between 
the places in which they were detained, naming the prison of the former, 
career ; that of the latter, vincula publica ; and distinctly declared that 
the career w as to be regarded simply as a place for detaining men, keeping 
them safely, and not, like the vincula publica, for punishing them. The 
supreme conclusion from this argument is, that persons under a charge 
of crime, and while that charge remains still unproved, have a right to 
be protected from all danger of contamination by their fellow-prisoners, 
many of whom, no doubt, are guilty; and this protection can be had only 
through cellular separation. Even if the accused himself is willing, or 
indeed anxious, to forego this protection, society owes such guardianship 
to itself, for it cannot afford to have its members corrupted when it is 
in its power to prevent it. Another consequence flows from the argu¬ 
ment 5 it is that, except the deprivation of liberty, nothing in these 
places of detention ought to be made to assume the aspect, the forms, 
the afflictive austerity of the prison. The accused ought to enjoy in 
them all the moral and material comforts that are consistent with their 
safe custody. 

Permanency in the administration of county jails, as of all other 
prisons, I regard as a matter of the highest importance. To this end, 
where contiguous counties are small, or the population sparse, it might 
be well to have two or more counties unite in the maintenance of a jail. 
This would economize the expenditures, as well as facilitate the change 
suggested from an ever shifting to a permanent administration. 

d. Next in the ascending series would come a class of institutions oc¬ 
cupying a position between the countyjail and the state prison. This 
kind of prison is not at present numerous in the United States, al- 
tough, properly organized and conducted, it would be, in some 
respects, the most important of all, especially since, if multipled to the 
extent it should be, it would be the most numerously peopled, and its 
occupants would be, for the most part, a class of criminals less steeped 
in crime than the population of the state prisons, and therefore more 
open to reformatory influences. The few that are now found among us 
are called by various names, but the designation which seems most fit, 
as best expressing their nature and design, is that of House of Correc¬ 
tion. They would receive, for the most part, those misdemeanants who 
now have their punishment in the county jails, though with the crimi¬ 
nal laws so changed that, after a first offense, which would still be pun¬ 
ishable in the countyjail, the sentences would be made long enough for 
genuine reformatory work to be wrought upon them. A number of 
these houses of correction, greater or less, according to territorial ex¬ 
tent and population, would be needed in every State. They should be 
dispersed through the State, at points as convenient as possible to the 
several counties for whose use each is intended. 

The advantages to be expected from the general establishment of this 
class of prisons are: 1. The organization of each with a full staff of 


HOUSES OF CORRECTION—STATE PRISONS. 


281 


officers, and with all other appointments necessary for an effective per¬ 
formance of the work assigned them. 2. The arrangement of build¬ 
ings, cells, workshops, school-rooms, chapels, and the entire premises, in a 
manner suited to a complete penitentiary system. 3. The introduction 
of a comprehensive, well-adjusted system of industrial labor. 4. Di¬ 
minished cost of maintenance, despite the increase of officers—owing 
in part to the earnings of the prisoners, and in part to greater economy 
in the administration. 5. The relief of the common jails by the absence 
of a large proportion of their worst inmates and those returning most 
frequently, which would make the separate imprisonment of the rest 
comparatively easy, and might even enable several counties to unite 
their jails into one. 0. The relief of the State prisons by punishing in 
houses of correction the younger criminals, and perhaps some others, 
in whose cases extenuating circumstances may have appeared, and in 
reference to whom good hope may be entertained of benefit from the 
discipline of the house. 7. The crowning recommendation of the sys¬ 
tem lies in the reformatory character to be impressed upon it. This, 
indeed, is the great point to be sought through its establishment. But 
the complete and effective introduction of a reformatory discipline into 
any prison system makes exceedingly desirable, if it does not necessi¬ 
tate, the accompaniment of the Crofton intermediate prison. To avoid 
repetition, however, the treatment of this point will be postponed till 
the subject of state prisons comes to be considered, when some hints 
will be given touching the application of the principle to houses of cor¬ 
rection. 

e. Next and last in the series of establishments composing the prison 
system is the state prison proper—called in England convict, and on 
the continent central, prisons—the receptacle of criminals convicted of 
the gravest offenses against society and its laws, which are punishable 
by imprisonment, and not by death. It is here, as I conceive, that re¬ 
forms the most material are needed. Even supposing the system, in its 
substratum, to remain unchanged, still important modifications are re¬ 
quired to bring our state prisons into harmony wuth the true design of 
a penitentiary system, considered as an agency for reforming fallen men 
and women. A complete separation of their government from party poli¬ 
tics; permanence in their executive administration; the employment of 
well-qualified officers; the abolishment of the contract system; the or¬ 
ganization of convict labor on a principle which, in seeking to make the 
prisons self-supporting, will seek still more to make their industries an 
agency in reforming their inmates, and in restoring them to society 
masters of a trade that will enable them, on their discharge, to earn an 
honest living; a broader moral and scholastic instruction; a wider use of 
rewards to industry and good conduct, so that the principle of hope shall 
be made to act with greater vigor than that of fear; and the making of 
the reformation of the prisoners the real, as it is admitted to be the 
proper, aim of the discipline. Such are the essential reforms needed in 
the system, supposing it to continue, in other respects, what it is at 
present. 

But I am not satisfied with the system as it is, nor should I be even 
with the reforms indicated in the last paragraph, for there are other 
reforms needed to give even to these their full vigor and efficiency. 
The fundamental reform required is, in my judgment, the introduction 
and efficient application of the principle of progressive classification, 
worked, in successive stages, on some well-considered mark system. 
Three stages would seem to be essential to the best and most effective 
working of this plan : the first strongly penal, to be undergone in 


282 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


cellular separation; the second less penal, but still distinctly par¬ 
taking of that character, yet becoming gradually less and less so, on 
the prisoner passing from class to class, as successive promotions are 
earned ; while the third should retain but little of the penal character, 
being intended partly to test the reality of the reformation effected 
in the two preceding stages, and partly to train the prisoner for a time 
before his discharge, under conditions similar to those of ordinary free 
life, and so facilitate his re-absorption into the ranks of honest industry. 
This would place the prisoner’s fate, during his incarceration, to a great 
extent, in his own hands. It would enable him, through industry and 
good conduct, to raise himself, step by step, to a position of increased 
freedom and privilege, while, on the contrary, idleness and disobedience 
would keep him in a state of coercion .and restraint. This would place 
the springs of conduct within instead of without, and make him act from 
an inward impulse rather than from the application of any external force. 
It would effectually enlist his own will in the work of self-improvement, 
which I look upon as an essential condition of his reformation, for how 
is it possible to change a bad man into a good one against his own con¬ 
sent! Virtue is an outgrowth. It cannot be forced upon a man, but 
must spring from a germ planted within, to be developed and brought 
to perfection, by the assiduous care and nurture of the man himself; on 
this condition, and no other. 

The system thus briefly sketched is, for substance, what has been 
heretofore known as the Irish, but is now generally, as of right it should 
be, called the Crofton system, from the name of its founder; and this 
last stage is his intermediate prison, so named because it holds a mid¬ 
dle ground between an imprisonment strictly penal and an imprison¬ 
ment differing but slightly from the condition of freedom complete and 
entire. It is essentially a probationary stage, its supreme aim being to 
Xirove the prisoner, and so to be enabled, if the trial turn out satisfac¬ 
tory, to give to an employer needing his services the requisite guaran¬ 
tee of industry and trustworthiness. 

Here we touch the very heart and marrow of the question. The 
problem is, how to effect the re-absorption of reformed criminals into 
virtuous society ! An army of convicts is every year discharged from 
prison. Society distrusts and refuses to employ them, thereby compel¬ 
ling a return to crime, and augmenting by its injustice the evil which 
it aims to cure by its punishments. How can its distrust be conquered, 
work secured to the convict, his salvation assured, and crime, as the 
resulting consequence, diminished! There are just two elements in the 
solution of this problem, and both, I think, essential—the reformation 
of the convict aud a guarantee of his reformation that shall be satisfac¬ 
tory to the public. The reformation is to be effected by the processes 
—industrial, educational, and moral—to which he is subjected during 
his imprisonment. But the needed guarantee—how is that to be had ! 
How is the moral cure of the prisoner to be tested f For a test there 
must be; it is indispensable. The discharged convict, though reformed 
and resolved to live honestly, fails to get work; and he fails so general¬ 
ly, that failure is the rule aud success the exception. Why is this! 
It is not that society is hard-hearted; that it has no sympathy with 
misfortune; that it is vindictive and cruel; that it tramples upon a man 
merely because he is down. Far from it. But society has no confidence 
in the liberated prisoner; and, what is more to the "purpose, it lias no 
guarantee for its confidence. It is the want of a guarantee that builds a 
wall of grauite between the released convict and honest bread. Con¬ 
quer the distrust of society, replace it with confidence, furnish the re- 


CROFTON SYSTEM—INTERMEDIATE PRISONS. 283 

quired guarantee that the man is trustworthy , and all difficulty will 
vanish. Every shop, every factory, every farm, every avenue of honest 
toil will be open to his entrance. But the question is, how to abate the 
prejudice felt by society toward the liberated prisoner; how to over¬ 
come its dread of him; how to allay its fears; how to win for him its 
confidence and conciliate its regard $ There is but one way to accom¬ 
plish this result. The convict must furnish proof, during his imprison¬ 
ment, that it is safe to trust him; safe to put him at the wmrk-bench ; 
safe to place in his hands u the shovel and the hoe;” safe to admit him 
to the fireside and the home-circle. In other words, his cure must be 
tested before he is discharged. But I do not see how this can be done 
where the system is one of material isolation to the end, nor any more 
how it can be done where the system is one of moral isolation to the end. 
There must be some field, some opportunity, for the trial. But such a 
theater, such a chance, can be afforded neither by the separate nor the 
associate system, as generally conducted. Both systems must be in 
part retained, in part discarded, in part changed. They must be so 
modified that the passage from imprisonment to freedom shall not be, 
as heretofore, by a single bound. The change must be so adjusted that 
the former shall gradually, almost imperceptibly, melt into the latter. 
The system must be such that the latter part of the imprisonment shall 
be little more than moral, in which, as far as may be, all the arrange¬ 
ments shall be those of ordinary life, with its trusts, its temptations, it& 
motives, its responsibilities, its victories over self and sin, its silent 
toning up and strengthening of the whole character by the friction to 
which the man is, in these various ways, subjected. 

Our state-prison systems should be so organized as to have connected 
with each prison, in one form or another, tbe substance of this inter¬ 
mediate establishment, this stage of comparative freedom and of natural 
training, which, at the same time, prepares the prisoner for full freedom, 
and tests his fitness for it. 

But how can this stage be applied in the case of prisoners committed 
to the houses of correction ? These would scarcely be large enough to 
warrant the establishment of an intermediate prison in connection with 
each. A single establishment of this kind would probably be sufficient 
for most States, but if the State were both large and populous, two or 
three might be necessary. The English convict establishments have 
not yet added the intermediate prison ; nor does it exist in connection 
with the system of county and borough jails, either in England or 
Ireland. An eminent English philanthropist, Mr. Barwick Baker, is so 
impressed with the importance of the intermediate prison in connection 
with the English county and borough jail system, that he proposed, 
four years ago, a plan for making an experiment in that direction, and 
proffered his services to conduct the experiment himself. Mr. Baker is 
a gentleman of large wealth and high social position, as well as of great 
intellectual and business capacity, all of which are devoted, with in¬ 
cessant and tireless zeal, to the promotion of reforms in every depart¬ 
ment of social progress, but more especially to the work of juvenile 
reformation and the improvement of prison discipline. He established, 
I think, the first juvenile reformatory in England—certainly one of the 
first—and, at his own cost, conducted it for a number of years in person, 
and has maintained it ever since; his eldest son, upon whom the father’s 
mantle appears to have fallen, acting at present as superintendent. Nor 
has he only been acquainted, for at least twenty years, with reformatory 
work, but for a still longer period he has been, as a magistrate and 
visiting justice, conversant with the management and character of adult 


284 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


criminals. These facts are stated to show that it is not as a mere 
amateur, still less as a sciolist, that Mr. Baker speaks; hut as a 
gentleman of large experience and calm judgment, whose opinions, 
on that account, are entitled to the highest respect. Mr. Baker 
commences the statement of his plan with a citation from a late 
report of the inspector of reformatories, in which that officer declares 
that, on the occurrence of certain changes which he recommends, 
a considerable number of these establishments might be given 
up. In that case, Mr. Baker says that he would propose to have the 
boys in his reformatory removed to others, and that the Home Office 
accept the buildings and land as an intermediate prison or house of cor¬ 
rection. The secretary of. state for the home department having full 
power to remove a prisoner from any one prison to any other, and to 
send him back at pleasure, Mr. Baker proposes that a few of the best 
men in the jails of his own and the neighboring counties be allowed to 
petition the secretary to remove them to the intermediate prison for such 
time only as their conduct proves to be satisfactory. Their petition 
should state that they had had the rules of the new prison read to them, 
and that they understood and agreed to the terms of their removal. If 
the secretary granted the petition, and the prisoner conformed to the 
rules and worked with earnest good-will on the farm, he would continue 
there for the remainder of his sentence; if otherwise, he would be sent 
back to the jail. Nor could he complain of this re-transfer as a hard¬ 
ship, since it would be but a return to his original sentence, to which 
he had made himself justly liable by a violation of the conditions on 
which his first transfer was granted. Those who remained through their 
whole term would then return to the kinds of work on which they had 
been lately employed, and to habits and a manner of life not unlike those 
which they left behind them. If a man’s release occurred at a season of 
the year when employment was scarce, (a matter of much importance, 
if care be had for the diminution of crime,) he should be allowed to re¬ 
main at the house till work could be found for him. So far, Mr. Baker 
says, no new legislation would be required. But if the system, on trial, 
proved a success, it would become necessary to secure the passage of an 
act authorizing the release of the prisoner on license, to earn his living 
under the watch of the police. Such license would not be a pardon, but 
simply a permission for a man to earn his own living during good be¬ 
havior, revocable at any time for any kind of misconduct, even for being 
for any considerable time out of work, aud so without visible means of 
support. The great objection to placing criminals in an intermediate 
prison without walls is that they would be likely to escape. To this Mr. 
Baker replies that he well remembers the time when the greatest pains 
were taken to search prisoners, even to the frequent unripping of their 
beds, to prevent the possible secreting of a nail with which the cell-door 
might be opened, or of a scrap of iron which could be sharpened into a 
knife. The safety of the jail was supposed principally to depend on 
this sort of care and watchfulness. But every prisoner now has a knife 
in his cell; yet escapes of violence are much less frequent than in those 
days. So Mr. Baker takes notice that twenty years ago, if it had been 
proposed to keep a number of boys imprisoned in a field with common 
hedges round it and public foot-paths running through it, the person so 
proposing would have been thought little short of a lunatic; yet this 
system has proved a decided success. Mr. Baker claims to have had, 
and certainly has had, large experience of men and boys, and he declares 
that he has no doubt that men would be far more easily restrained with- 


CRIME-CAPITALISTS. 285 

out walls than boys have been, for the reason that they commonly act 
more upon reason and less on sudden impulse. 

I have cited this proposition of Mr. Baker at some length, not because 
it is applicable, in all its phases and details, to the case in hand, but 
because it contains the judgment, on the general question, of a man of 
cool and cautious intellect and of a half century’s observation, and more 
particularly because of the important opinion, expressed in the last sen¬ 
tence, as to the greater ease with which men, as compared with boys, 
might be held under restraint by moral forces. 

§ 7. A paper of great value, on the u Capitalists of Crime,” was sub¬ 
mitted to the congress by Mr. Edwin Hill, who has for many years made 
the study of this subject a specialty. An analysis of this paper has already 
been given in the second part of the present report, which treats of the 
work of the congress. But the subject is one of so much importance, 
and to which so little attention has heretofore been given, that it seems 
to me worthy of still further elucidation, and especially that it should 
have a place in this chapter of u suggestions.” 

The contest between those who work and those who plunder is nearly 
as old as the world itself. Nor is there, I fear, much ground to hope for 
its speedy termination. It is worth while to inquire whether society has 
not made a mistake in its mode of carrying on this contest. Has it not 
failed to recognize the fact that habitual criminality is a craft, not car¬ 
ried on solely by isolated individuals, but by a virtual, if not a formal, 
organization, comprehending various grades and divisions of work, and 
requiring the combined action of capital and labor just as other crafts 
do, and being, like them, too, dependent for its continued existence on 
this union ! There are two well-defined classes enlisted in criminal oper¬ 
ations, the capitalists and the operatives, those who furnish the means 
and those who work the machinery; and the former are absolutely essen¬ 
tial to the latter. The crime-capitalists include at least four classes: 1. 
The owners of houses and dens, affording to criminals habitations and 
places to which they may resort for carousal and low enjoyments. 2. 
The receivers or purchasers of stolen goods. 3. The pawnbrokers who 
lend money on such goods. 4. The makers of burglarious and other 
instruments used in criminal operations. It is, to a great extent, the 
practical impunity of these capitalists which supports the breed of 
thieves, burglars, and counterfeiters. As the law now stands, a man 
possessed of some capital may, with absolute impunity, use it in pro¬ 
viding homes for criminals, arranged, if he so please, for concealing the 
thieves and their plunder, and for baffling the pursuit of the police; or 
he may, with equal impunity, engage in the manufacture of burglars’, 
thieves’, and counterfeiters’ instruments, some of which are required to 
be of elaborate construction and workmanship. It is true that as regards 
those who cash the stolen property, either by purchase or by loan—re¬ 
ceivers and pawnbrokers—the law does provide for their punishment; 
but the requirements as to evidence are such as to make detection and 
conviction, in ordinary cases, all bnt impossible. No doubt the criminal 
capitalists, compared to the swarms of operative plunderers, constitute 
but a small class. But being more sensitive to the terrors of the law, 
and more confined to given localities, they offer by far the fairest mark 
for criminal legislation. The mere operative of the criminal chxss has 
neither reputation to hazard nor property to lose; he can hide himself, 
or run away. Not so, however, the man who has invested his capital in 
aid of the predatory class. He cannot conceal himself; and if he ab¬ 
scond, he must leave bis house, his shop, or his stock behind him. These 
crime-capitalists present a vital and an exceedingly vulnerable part of 


286 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


the organization. If it were made absolutely unsafe for owners of prop¬ 
erty to afford shelter to habitual criminals—the stern rule, “no house- 
room to the dishonest, 7 ’ being rigidly enforced—and if it were also made 
equally unsafe either to purchase stolen property or to advance money 
upon it, the class that now lives by plunder would be driven to honesty 
or starvation. Some years ago, in the town of Kidderminster, England, 
it was noticed that while more bulky articles were perfectly secure from 
depredation, the silk and thread used in bombazine and carpet weav¬ 
ing were constantly stolen. Kow, what was the cause of this strange 
anomaly? Not, surely, that the people were honest for one thing and 
dishonest for another. But this was the reason: Kidderminster was 
not large enough to harbor a trader in stolen goods of the ordinary 
kind; but it contained many small weavers, some of whom had both 
means and inclination to buy the stoleu silk and thread. Circumstances 
enabled capital and labor—the capital of the small weaver and the labor 
of the thief—to act jointly against the silk and thread, while they 
did not admit of such joint action against other kinds of property. 
There is a world of instruction in this. It says to society, Strike at the 
crime-capitalist in your warfare against crime; make the cities too hot 
to hold him; destroy opportunity in the large towns as well as in the 
small; and then evil inclination will remain dormant and undeveloped 
in the former no less than in the latter. But so long as, through igno¬ 
rance or fear, you fail to adopt this method of attack, you will be obliged 
to maintain an army of policemen to check evil inclination as it ripens 
into crime; your property will be exposed to plunder and your persons 
to injury ; and thousands upon thousands of children, who might have 
been saved, will be doomed to grow up under influences which will com¬ 
pel them, by a law as inexorable as that which makes the magnetic 
needle obey the lodestone, to become the criminal army of the future. 

Kow, of what has been said, this is the sum: To the spoliation of 
property, the united action of capital and labor is essential. Habitual 
criminality is sustained by an alliance between these two elements, each 
being alike indispensable to the prosecution of the business. The crime- 
capitalists are few; the operative plunderers many. The law strikes at 
the many operatives, one by one; it might and should strike at the few 
capitalists as a class. Let it direct its blows against the connection 
between capital and labor, ordinarily a beneficent one, but in this case 
evil, and only evil; nor forbear its assaults till it has wholly broken and 
dissolved the connection. When this baleful union shall be pierced in a 
vital part, it will perish. When the corner-stone of the leprous fabric 
shall be removed, the building itself will tumble into ruins. 

§ 8. A large number of persons, in this country and in all countries, 
are every year arrested on suspicion and committed to prison, where 
they are confined for longer or shorter periods, varying from a day to a 
year, and even more, who, nevertheless, either on their first hearing or 
their trial, are acquitted by the magistrate or the court, and liberated 
as not guilty of the crimes charged against them. Yet, I am not aware 
that anywhere the persons so arrested, so imprisoned, and so adjudged to 
be innocent, receive any indemnity for the loss of time to which they have 
been, if not unjustly, at least without any fault of theirs, subjected. On 
this state of things, the question arises, Is not personal liberty a right 
as respectable as the right of property? And if this question is answered, 
as it must be, in the affirmative, a second instantly arises, viz, Is it not 
the plain duty of society to indemnify the innocent citizen, whom it has 
imprisoned, for the loss of time thus occasioned, as it indemnifies the 
citizen from whom it has taken his house or his field for some public use ? 


INDEMNITY FOR WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT. 


287 


The right of indemnity, in this latter case, is not only fully recognized, 
but guarded with a jealous care. The state wants a part or the whole 
of my land for some great work, whose execution is demanded by the 
public good. Yet it can take possession only after various and solemn 
formalities. My right of ownership is guarded at every point and at 
every step; and I can be finally dispossessed only on receipt of full value 
for that of which 1 am deprived. I am found under circumstances which 
induce a suspicion, possibly a very slight one, that I have committed a 
criminal act. The state causes my arrest, and shuts me up in prison. 
It holds me there one month, six months, twelve months ; and then, by 
the mouth of its chosen agents, solemnly declares that I am not guilty 
of the crime of which it had, or thought it had, reason to suspect me, 
and consequently lets me go free. That is all the state does. But is 
that the state’s whole duty ? Am I not as much entitled to indemnity in 
this case as in the other? The state thought I had done wrong, but 
was mistaken, and has made public and solemn declaration to that 
effect. Ought she not to repair the loss of time caused by her error? 
It is impossible for her to make good other and graver losses. “A man 
is accused, (I cite the words of an eminent French publicist, Mr. 
Mathieu;) some appearances are against him ; and, though the pre¬ 
sumption of innocence protects him, he is arrested; he is torn away 
from his home, his family, his affairs; disorder and trouble are intro¬ 
duced into all his relations; a deadly blow is given to his credit; 
and he is exposed to a ruin which he might ward off if he were at 
liberty, but which his imprisonment renders inevitable. Not only 
has this man suffered all the pains which have just been described; 
not only has he seen, without being able to apply a remedy, disor¬ 
der and ruin invade his business, but it is in vain that an order of 
the judge, or even a decision of the tribunal, annuls his imprisonment 
and breaks his chains. The preliminary detention has marked him with 
an indelible stigma; the suspicion, in virtue of which justice has laid 
her hand upon him, follows him like his shadow, and his reputation will 
not be cured of the deadly wound it has received. Yet it is not the 
prisoner who is most to be pitied. How can we fail to turn our eyes 
toward his wife, his children, his family, though innocent, yet smitten 
with the same blow, ruined and disgraced like himself, without a fault 
that can be laid to their charge? Is this justice? Can society so crush 
the individual in the name of the general interest?” 

Surely the principle of indemnity lies wrapped up, as the acorn holds 
the oak, in this eloquent denunciation; rather, let me say, this irref¬ 
ragable logic. Not, indeed, complete indemnity, for money is not equal 
to that function, but indemnity for the time spent in prison. This prin¬ 
ciple is applied every day in similar cases. The witness and the jury¬ 
man, summoned from the work-bench or the counting-house to the court¬ 
room, receive each a piece of money for the loss of time thus incurred. 
To one of them, who makes, perchance, his hundreds a day, it is but 
the symbol of justice, a token of the mutual relation between the citi¬ 
zen and the state; to the other, it is the daily bread of himself and his 
family. Gan any reason be assigned why the same principle should not, 
nay, must not, be applied in the case of the man whom the judicial 
authority itself, speaking from the seat of justice, has declared to have 
been imprisoned and u held in durance vile” without adequate cause? 
Two incidental advantages, of no inconsiderable moment, additional to 
that of meeting a demand of justice, might be expected from the intro¬ 
duction of this principle into the administration of criminal law, viz, 
greater caution in making arrests, and more speedy trials after arrest. 


288 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


Well and eloquently, in a paper on this subject prepared for the Cincin¬ 
nati congress, has Mr. Corne said: “Man is not yet valued at his just 
price. The resources which he is capable of developing are far from 
having attained their maximum of force. Henceforth, without danger 
of being considered utopian, we may demand for him a portion of that 
respect with which mere property is surrounded. It is in this view that 
we claim that no prisoner, judicially recognized as innocent, shall be re¬ 
stored to his liberty without indemnity for the injury he has suffered as 
a consequence of his unjust imprisonment.’ 7 

§ 9. The identification of prisoners who have been previously con victed, 
is a matter of the highest importance in the administration of criminal 
law; but, unfortunately, no well-devised plan for attaining this object 
with certainty exists, so far as I know, in any of the States of our Union. 
Hence the statistics of relapses and recommittals among us are vague 
and unreliable in the extreme; nothing could be in a more unsatisfactory 
state. Much use is made of photography in England and Ireland, and 
the same is true of several of the continental states. But the most 
perfect scheme for securing trustworthy knowledge on this point is the 
criminal registers ( casiers judiciaires) devised by Mr. Bonneville de Mar- 
sangy, a French jurist of great eminence, who has lived to see the re¬ 
markable success of his invention in his own country, where it has been in 
use for some fifteen 3 T ears or more, and its adoption in many others—Italy, 
Portugal, Denmark, &c. The first Napoleon, the greatest organizer of 
modern times, desired that his minister of justice should have always 
at'hand “the biography of all malefactors;” a most natural wish, since 
of all the elements of a judgment as to the moral curability or incorri¬ 
gibility of an offender, the most reliable is a knowledge of his past, and 
particularly as that past may have been connected with the administra¬ 
tion of penal justice. This is precisely the knowledge which the crimi¬ 
nal registers give concerning every man in France, who has ever felt 
himself within the grasp of the law. The registers are an administra¬ 
tive agency, with whose organization and workings, on my first visit to 
France, I was more desirous of becoming acquainted, from personal ex¬ 
amination, than almost any other. Hence, learning that they were to 
be seen in the court-house ( palais de justice) at Saint Omer, the first 
town I visited in France, that venerable structure received very early 
attention after my arrival. I found the easier to be an immense case, 
resembling a cupboard or closet, covering the whole side of a large 
apartment in the building, called the registry. The case contained rows 
of deep pigeon-holes, of which the number was equal to that of the let¬ 
ters of the alphabet. These compartments were filled with boxes or 
movable registers ( casiers mobiles) arranged in alphabetical order, each 
containing the individual bulletins, or certificates of conviction, pro¬ 
nounced in any part of France agaiust all persons born in that district, 

(<arrondissement .) As soon as a sentence is pronounced by any tribunal 
(even though it be military or naval) the clerk of the district in which 
the prisoner has been convicted is obliged, on pain of a fine, to imme¬ 
diately address, signed by the attorney for the government, the certifi¬ 
cate of his sentence to the registry of the district of which he is a 
native. Each certificate is on a single sheet, of a prescribed form and 
size, to facilitate the handling, and on strong paper to prevent its de¬ 
struction. I examined, with lively interest, a great number of these cer¬ 
tificates, giving the criminal history, so far as it is found in the records 
of courts, of prisoners convicted from one to twenty times—often in a 
half dozen or dozen different places. They fully met the demand of the 
author of the Code Napoleon for a complete criminal biography of every 


IDENTIFICATION OF PRISONERS. 


289 


mail who had suffered the arrests of justice. Now there is just such a 
registry iu every arrondissement or jurisdiction of France. There is, 
therefore, no longer auy uncertainty possible in regard to the antece¬ 
dents of any person charged with crime. A telegram, addressed to 
the register of his place of birth, immediately brings the statement that 
there is no record in his case, or a recapitulation of all the convictions 
previously had against him, no matter where, no matter when. 

But suppose the accused to be of foreign birth, or to be ignorant of 
his birth-place, or to conceal it. M. de Marsangy has not forgotten or 
failed to provide for such contingencies. For these three classes he has 
caused to be established in Paris a central depot of certificates of con¬ 
viction in the department of the minister of justice. 

There are thus two centers of investigation. When the conviction of 
a person, arraigned before any tribunal in France, is found neither in 
the registry of his birthplace nor in that of the ministry of justice, M. 
de Marsangy regards it as an almost certain proof that he has never 
before been, in that country at least, under the hand of justice. 

I will not stay to point out the many and great advantages which 
must accrue to a country iu which such a system has been established 
and is efficiently administered. Whoever wishes to see them set forth 
with equal force and eloquence is referred to a paper furnished by their 
author to the penitentiary congress of Cincinnati, and published in its 
volume of transactions.* 

The system of criminal registers, by the very simplicity of the prin¬ 
ciples which form its basis, is easily applicable to all countries. The 
four following measures constitute all the conditions precedent which 
are necessary to the establishment and successful working of the sys¬ 
tem in any state: 1. That a register of births be kept in duplicate 

copies, and that, every year, one of these duplicates be deposited in the 
registry of the tribunal of the district. 2. That each clerk of the court 
of the district have a case made, containing a certain number of com¬ 
partments for the reception of the boxes or movable registers, (casters 
mobiles ,) arranged in alphabetical order, which are to serve as deposi¬ 
tories of the individual certificates under each letter. 3. That the cer¬ 
tificate of every conviction, wherever had, be immediately addressed to 
the tribunal of the convict’s native district. 4. That every magistrate, 
prosecuting an offender, be required to obtain from the clerk of the dis¬ 
trict of which he is a native, and to attach to the proceedings in the 
case, the certificate recapitulating all prior convictions against him 
which may have been collected and classified in his native district. 

A careful study of the most effective means of identifying accused 
prisoners previously convicted, and of the criminal registers, among 
other agencies having this end in view, is worthy of the best minds in 
our country, and especially of those who are called to make or execute 
the laws. 

§ 10. Reference was made in the last section to the scantiness and 
untrustworthiness of penitentiary statistics in this country relating to 
relapses and recommittals. But the remark might receive a broader 
application. Indeed, the whole science of statistics, and more particu¬ 
larly as it relates to crime and criminal administration, is too little ap¬ 
preciated, and therefore too much neglected in the United States. We 
have no general, and especially no uniform, system of penitentiary 
statistics for the whole country. But such a system is a great desider- 


*A copy of said transactions can be had, without charge, by applying to Dr. Wines, 
secretary National Prison Association, No. 320 Broadway, New York. 

H. Ex. 185-19 





290 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


atum ; it is, indeed, almost essential to broad and solid progress in this 
department of social progress. The laws of social phenomena can be 
ascertained only through the accumulation of facts. Eeturns of such 
facts, carefully gathered from a wide field of observation, and skill¬ 
fully digested and tabulated, are indispensable to enable us to judge of 
the effect of any law or system which may have been put in operation. 
What we want to know is the facts; but a knowledge of the facts re¬ 
lating to so complex a subject as that of crime aud criminal adminis¬ 
tration implies a mass of figures, collected from all quarters, and 
arranged with reference to some well-defined end. The local and the 
special are to little purpose here. It is the general only that has value; 
that is to say, returns so numerous, so manifold, and drawn from so 
wide a field and amid such diversified circumstances as to give real 
significance to the results. It is such returns alone that will yield in¬ 
ferences of practical value. We want to get.an average; but in order 
to this, we must have scope aud variety enough, both in the range and 
character of the returns, to be enabled to eliminate from them whatever 
is local and accidental, and to retain only what is general and perma¬ 
nent. Only on this condition can our conclusion as to what constitutes 
the essence of the matter be sound and safe. Only on this condition 
shall we be able to feel that our inferences rest, not upon mere inci¬ 
dents of the phenomena, Avhieli maybe partial, casual, and immaterial; 
but upon the phenomena themselves, apart from variations which are 
only temporary or adventitious. 

We wish to know, for example, whether the stern severity of the 
old system of prison discipline, or the benign pressure of the new, is the 
more successful in diminishing crime. How are we to decide this ques¬ 
tion % Obviously, our decision will have little force, unless our facts 
shall have been collected from a wide territory, and under a great diver¬ 
sity of conditions ; so that every phase of the phenomena shall have 
been included in our returns, and all that is special and exceptional 
shall have been corrected, and a result reached, not neutralized or 
vitiated by any circumstances which have not been noted and due 
allowance made for them in the analysis. But the materials for a gen¬ 
eralization having the breadth and trustworthiness here supposed are 
criminal and penitentiary statistics. A reformatory prison in one place 
may signally succeed, and in another as signally fail; yet the success 
of the one and the failure of the other may have little value as an argu¬ 
ment, since they may have been due to accidental causes—the compe¬ 
tency or incompetency of the head, for example—and they will, there¬ 
fore, afford no ground for any general conclusion. But if the experi¬ 
ment of the new and milder discipline has been tried in a score of differ¬ 
ent places, and under conditions widely variant, and yet has always 
succeeded in securing a larger proportion of reformations than the old 
and more rigid system, except in a very few cases where the failure can 
be clearly traced to adventitious causes, such an induction will afford 
a solid basis for our inferences, and we shall feel that we stand upon a 
rock in affirming the proposition that kindness is more efficacious than 
severity in reforming prisoners and leading them back to the paths 
of virtue. 

In proportion, therefore, as our facts are gathered from narrow dis¬ 
tricts and confined to short periods of time, our generalizations will be 
unsafe as a basis of argument, for we can never be sure that the mere 
accidents of the experiment may not have determined the character 
of the result. A practice founded on conclusions arrived at in this 
way, though scientific in form, would be empirical in fact; dogmatism 


PENITENTIARY STATISTICS. 


291 


would have been mistaken for induction. Nor can this false reasoning 
be corrected otherwise than by returns which, if not universal, are at 
least general; that is, broadly comprehensive both of space and time. 
As we know crime to be occasionally local and epidemic, so, under cer¬ 
tain conditions, may reformations be; for what else are those mighty 
revivals of religion which have marked the history of the church in ail 
ages ! Results may be secured in one place and by oiie agency, which 
we may in vain seek to parallel in another place and by a different 
agency. If we would know what a curative agency applied to crimin¬ 
als can accomplish on the whole, we must know what it is effecting in 
the manufacturing towns and the rural villages, what in the sea-ports 
and the mountains and valleys of the interior, and what in the coal beds 
and the gold mines. We must learn its results, not in selected spots 
and under particular circumstances, but over broad regions and amid 
conditions endlessly varied. The essential, inwrought power of a system 
of prison discipline then comes out and makes itself manifest, when it 
is seen in conflict with the special obstacles it has to encounter in the 
agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, and mining populations of a 
country. The result of its struggle with all opposing forces is the re¬ 
sult which alone is of any worth to us. And this can be known only as 
the facts are gathered from all these fields, and are collated, digested, 
and reduced to tabulated forms upon some uniform system, or at least 
in a way that will admit of practical comparison. 

We want such statistics, uniform, full, and collected with regularity, 
year by year, from all the prisons and reformatories of the country. 
What do the American people know about American prisons ! Some¬ 
thing they know of the prisons of Charlestown, Sing Sing, and Phila¬ 
delphia ; but what information have they of the condition and progress 
of prison discipline in Oregon, Texas, and Arkansas! How many know 
the principle on which labor is organized, and the manner in which it is 
conducted in the penitentiaries of Nevada, Kansas, Alabama, and Geor¬ 
gia ! Yet prison discipline is a mighty interest, touching profoundly the 
nation’s well-being, and, as it succeeds or fails, involving its material 
interests to the extent of millions, aye, scores of millions every year. Is 
not prison discipline, then, a subject in which the people everywhere 
ought to be interested, and on which they need information, full, sys¬ 
tematic, and regular ! It is not in reference to a prison here, a reform¬ 
atory there, and a truant-home somewhere else, that they require to be 
informed; but they should have such information touching all the penal, 
reformatory, and preventive institutions of all the States; and then they 
would be able to judge whether the work of reforming criminals is really 
accomplished among us, or whether our penitentiary system is, so far 
forth, a mistake and a delusion. In the former case all we would need 
to do would be to u go on unto perfection in the latter it would be 
necessary to retrace our steps and take a u new departure.” 

It is not, however, simply in a national view that penitentiary statis¬ 
tics are valuable; they have an international importance as well. The 
Congress of London expressed very clearly its sense of this importance 
by the appointment of a permanent international commission, charged, 
among other functions, with the duty of devising, and, if possible, car¬ 
rying into effect a scheme for a comprehensive system of international 
criminal and penitentiary statistics, based on common principles, em¬ 
ploying common formulas, and arranged in such manner as to be a true 
measure and index of the crime, the penal administration, and the prison 
discipline of all civilized countries. The National Prison Association is 
the only organization in this country having a field of operations broad 


292 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

enough, and at the same time the requisite machinery, to co-operate in 
so vast a work. The association is disposed to give special attention to 
an enterprise recommended by so respectable a body, and promising re¬ 
sults of such signal utility, not to our own country alone, but to the 
whole human race. It is obvious, however, that the prosecution of such 
a work, where the very agencies through which it is to be effected will 
have to be created, will involve no inconsiderable expenditure of money, 
as well as an immense amount of labor. The labor it is willing to as¬ 
sume ; the money must be supplied from without. Impressed with the 
importance, in a national point of view, of the end proposed, the asso¬ 
ciation sought from Congress, at its last session, a grant of $10,000 to 
enable it to pursue that end with the vigor requisite to its accomplishment. 
The Senate inserted in the annual deficiency bill the appropriation asked, 
but it was thrown out in the conference committee, and so failed. The 
application will be renewed at the next session, when better success may 
be anticipated. It was well understood by the London Congress, and 
the opinion freely expressed, that so great a design could be accom¬ 
plished only through the generous co-operation of the governments of 
the whole civilized world, which, it was believed, would be readily ac¬ 
corded, in view of the beneficence as well as the vastness of the results 
to be expected. Mr. Beltrani-Scalia, of Italy, secretary of the commis¬ 
sion, has prepared a complete series of formulas for recording the 
statistics sought; and the governments of various European countries 
have already given their adhesion to the plan, and promised co-opera¬ 
tion. It is not to be supposed that the government of the United States 
will decline co-operation when it learns that other governments are 
lending their aid, and especially when it comes to understand the real 
nature and importance of the work, and an organization competent to 
its performance stands ready and is even anxious to undertake it. 

§ 11. A system of prison discipline, to be really reformatory, must 
work with nature rather than against it. If we would improve men, 
whether in prison or out of it, we must not ignore, much less crush, 
those great principles which the Creator has, for wise purposes, impressed 
upon the human constitution. The principle of sociability, for instance, 
is one of the strongest instincts of the soul; oue of the mightiest forces 
of human progress. Can we safely thrust it aside in our effort to re¬ 
claim and reform fallen men ? Captain Maconocliie’s great experiment 
in prison discipline on Norfolk Island, with its great harvest of reforma¬ 
tions of even the most hardened criminals, is well known. But he 
himself declares that his task was not really so difficult as it was thought, 
nor its results so wonderful as they appeared, for the reason that he 
was working with nature, not against her, as most other prison systems 
did. He sought to cherish, and at the same time to direct and regulate, 
those cravings for improved position which all men possess in some de¬ 
gree, and which are often strongest in those otherwise most debased. 
Under the guidance of right principle, he found that his men, most of 
whom were steeped in crime, rose easily to order and exertion. But 
this result was not accomplished by a system of pampering and weak 
indulgence. On the contrary, he held a steady hand, and his discipline 
was firm and energetic, though always just. He did not fail to inflict 
punishment when deserved; but he applied it within the limits assigned 
both by the letter and the spirit of the law, not by excesses of authority 
beyond it. The law imposed imprisonment and hard labor, and these 
he caused his men, in the fullest sense, to endure. Every one was re¬ 
quired to perform, to the last stroke, his allotted task; but he was saved 
all needless humiliation, and was encouraged to look to his own steady 


PRISON DISCIPLINE MUST WORK WITH NATURE. 293 


efforts for the amelioration of liis lot and for ultimate liberation. And 
this, he modestly declares—not the efforts of an individual, however 
zealous—was the real secret of his success. 

This principle of working with rather than against nature, in prison 
management, is in direct contradiction to existing systems of peniten¬ 
tiary discipline, and to the practice of most, happily not all, individual 
prisons. Coercion is, in most systems and prisons, the supreme force. 
The separate system is the most perfect form of coercion ever devised; 
men are utterly helpless in its grasp. But the silent system does not 
much differ from this. The silent, like the separate, system rests, in its 
last analysis, on the principle of isolation. The only difference is, that 
in the one case the isolation is accomplished by an absolute bodily sep¬ 
aration ; in the other, it is of a moral kind, being effected by the en¬ 
forcement of an absolute and eternal silence. The principle of sociability 
has no more play under the one system than under the other. At least 
so far as theory goes it has not; for if the theoretical silent system 
were or could be practically enforced, which is impossible, men w r ould 
work side by side for years, yes, for a life-time, without exchanging a 
thought by word, look, gesture, or any token whatever. Now all this 
constitutes a species of domestic slavery; and it sets such systems 
aside as ordinary agents of general reform. I do not deny that individ¬ 
ual reformations take place under them ; but this is not so much through 
the system as in spite of it. Coercion is not a soil in which the tender 
plant of moral reform ever grew; or, at least, in which it can be ordinarily 
expected to grow. Such rough-riding over human nature is irrecon¬ 
cilable with every principle legitimately founded on its study. 

Prisons should be made great workshops, or industrial establishments, 
where the inmates are systematically trained to be skillful, steady, sober, 
and voluntarily industrious; and where all the arrangements for labor 
are, at the same time, so like real life, as to be a natural preparation for 
it. The voluntary character of the labor cannot be too strongly insisted 
on. Compulsory labor—labor into which the will of the workman does 
not enter cordially—is, as a rule, rude, heedless, unskillful, and therefore 
unprofitable. It is free, and. still more, emulative or competitive labor 
that is earnest, ingenious, skillful, and productive. The economical im¬ 
provement under such a system would be felt almost as soon as the 
moral; nor, indeed, can these ever be disjoined. No doubt it would re¬ 
quire care and discretion, in the first instance, to organize such estab¬ 
lishments. But the skill employed in their organization must be like 
that highest art which conceals art; and it must, above all, be content 
to sow good seed, and then wit, without forcing, the expected return. 
It would be easy to produce immediate results; but these would be 
ephemeral. Possibly the wisdom which is willing to wait can be gained 
only in the school of experience; but the test of renewed convictions 
after discharge would at length teach it effectually. When the lesson not 
to go too fast, to give a large scope to free agency, to let temptation as¬ 
sume all its customary forms, to regulate little but encourage much, is 
sufficiently learned, complete success may be hoped for in what should 
ever be the great aim of public punishment, the reformation of the fallen. 

Much has been said of the demoralization and corruption resulting from 
the association of prisoners, especially with liberty of intercommunica¬ 
tion. No doubt if, as on the usual principle of prison management, only 
their worst feelings are called out, and their intercourse is without 
guidance or control, the association of prisoners will be corrupting. But 
if their better impulses are brought into play—and Maconochie, Mon- 
tesinos, Obermaier, Crofton, Sollohub, and Guillaume have shown that, 


294 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

by proper combinations, this may be done without sacrificing any measure 
of just and reasonable punishment—prisoners will be found very much 
like other men. 

It is argued that, however the association of prisoners with free 
persons might be advantageous to tbe former, that of prisoners 
with jnrsoners cannot but prove hurtful to them. But this is a 
gratuitous, and, in my opinion, wholly erroneous assumption. Every 
one knows that it is easier to influence men in a body than individually, 
and that, when once in motion, they will go further, since they mutually 
help one another by the common enthusiasm created by the union. 
Moreover, strange as the proposition sounds, there is a natural tendency 
in numbers toward right feeling. Witness the clap-traps of a theater, 
which are generally high moral sentiments. Witness the further fact, 
that the better feelings of a mob are rarely appealed to in vain. On the 
field of battle, the most heroic devotion, even to the sacrifice of life, is 
often called out at a word. In none of these instances, probably, could 
the same generous response be obtained from a single individual, which 
he renders, not only spontaneously, but enthusiastically, as one of a 
body. Captain Maconochie says that, on Norfolk Island, he could have 
done nothing with the prisoners separately; that the best of them 
would have remained only dogged under his exhortations ; and that, in 
Birmingham, he would neither have gained the boys as he did, nor 
would they have been able to influence each other outside as they did, 
if they had been shut up in separate cells. The experience of Monte- 
sinos at Yalencia, of Obermaier at Munich, of Crofton at Lusk, of Sollo- 
hub at Moscow, and of Guillaume at Neufchatel, was, as we have seen, 
all of the same nature. 

There is a reason of much cogency why greater prominence should be 
given to the social principle in our systems of prison discipline. Crime 
is essentially and intensely self-regarding, self-seeking, anti-social. 
Hence it is fostered by the selfish, and checked by the social, element of 
our nature. This fact is noted by Herbert Spencer in his Essay on 
Prison Ethics. He remarks : “ The natural prompter of right conduct 
to others, and the natural opponent of misconduct to others, is sympa¬ 
thy ; for out of sympathy grow both the kindly emotions, and that sen¬ 
timent of justice which restrains us from aggression. Well, this sympa¬ 
thy, which makes society possible, is cultivated by social intercourse. 
By habitual participation in the pleasures of others, the faculty is 
strengthened 5 and whatever prevents this participation weakens it—an 
effect commonly illustrated in the selfishness of old bachelors. Hence 
we contend that shutting up prisoners wifehin themselves, or forbidding 
all interchange of feeling, inevitably deadens such sympathies as they 
have, and so tends rather to diminish than to increase the moral check 
to transgression. Thus there is good reason to think that while silence 
and solitude may cow the spirit or undermine the energies, they cannot 
produce true reformation.” 

The principle is, that life within prison must be made as close a copy 
of life outside as may be, without sacrificing any of the just ends of 
public punishment. One of the most important parts of the machinery 
by which Captain Maconochie proposed to attain this object, was his 
mark system, which has been already partially explained. It wall be 
recollected that his plan was to have labor sentences instead of time 
sentences—specific tasks to be measured by marks, and to be worked 
out by the prisoners. No supplies of any kind, whether of food, bedding, 
clothing—not even education—were to be given gratuitously ; all were 
to be made exchangeable, at fixed rates, as the prisoner needed and was 


REFORMATORY DISCIPLINE MUST EMBRACE TWO STAGES. 295 


willing to buy them, for marks previously earned ; with the distinct un¬ 
derstanding, however, that only those which remained over and above 
all so exchanged, should count toward liberation. The prisoners, like 
free citizens, were thus made to depend, for every necessary and com¬ 
fort, on their own industry and personal deserts; while their prison 
offenses were restrained by fines to be paid in marks, just as those of 
persons outside are by fines in money or privation of liberty. Describ¬ 
ing the practical working of his method, Captain Maconochie says: 

“First, it gave me wages, and then fines. One gave me willing and 
progressively skilled laborers; the other saved me from the necessity of 
imposing brutal and demoralizing punishments. My form of money 
next gave me school fees. I was most anxious to encourage education 
among my men, but, as I had refused them rations gratuitously, so I 
would not give them schooling either, but compelled them to yield 
marks to acquire it. I never saw any other adult schools make such 
rapid progress. My form of money next gave me bail bonds in cases of 
minor or even of great offenses; a period of close imprisonment being 
often wholly or in part remitted in consideration of a sufficient number 
of other prisoners of good conduct becoming bound, under penalty ot 
the forfeiture of a certain number of good marks, for the improved con¬ 
duct of the culprit.” 

Even in the establishment of a sick-club and a burial-club, Captain 
Maconochie applied the inflexible principle of “nothing for nothing”— 
that is to say, here, as throughout, he made the discipline of the prison 
as much like the discipline of Providence in free life as possible. He 
sought to make all his arrangements such that the prisoners would ex¬ 
perience, through them, just such and so much of good or evil as natur¬ 
ally flowed from their conduct—a principle which he rightly declares to 
be the only true one. Now, what were the effects of a system made to 
conform, in so remarkable a degree, to the providential arrangements 
found in ordinary society? The extreme debasement of the Norfolk 
Island convicts was notorious. They were the scum of all the penal 
colonies, sent to Norfolk because of their exceptional depravity. Yet 
reformations of these men were effected to an extent and of a character 
unknown, either before or since, in any of the penal colonies of the 
British Empire. This we must believe, unless all human testimony is to 
be discredited. How strong the attestation thus lent to the truth and 
force of the principle under consideration. 

§ 12. In order to the best effect of a reformatory prison discipline, it 
should be divided into two distinct stages—the stage of punishment 
and the stage of reformation and training; the former having in view 
the prisoner’s past, the latter his future. Both these processes, when the 
object is reform, are equally benevolent, because both are equally 
essential to the end in view. There can as little be true reform with¬ 
out true penitence, as there can be the growth of the man without the 
birth of the child. But the necessity for each is not, of itself, equally 
clear to criminals. Many who would, if possible, escape from restric¬ 
tions as mere punishment, would willingly submit to them when under¬ 
stood to be a necessary antecedent of reform, and especially of release 
as conditioned upon reform; for nothing is counted a hardship which 
tends to that issue. As a fever must be reduced before its ravages can 
be repaired, and as a wound must be probed and cleansed before it can 
be properly healed, so, in the moral cure of a criminal, a punishing 
stage must precede the reformatory stage. To do one thing at a time, 
and each well, is the rule in all nice operations; and, surely, the recov¬ 
ery of a fellow-being from babits of crime to virtue, is worthy of an 


296 INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 

equally methodical and careful procedure, and is not likely to be accom¬ 
plished by one less scientific and delicate. 

The necessity for separating these two processes may be placed in 
another light, and shown by a different argument. Subjection to pun¬ 
ishment is an unnatural state, and interferes, necessarily, with that free 
agency, a sense of which is instinctive in man; whereas, on the con¬ 
trary,’a state of trial, of difficulty, of hardship even, supported by hope, 
and with its objects to be attained by voluntary exertion and self- 
denial, is a highly natural and improving state ; it is the very state in 
which we are all sent into the world, and to which, accordingly, our 
faculties are especially accommodated. The two processes, therefore, 
cannot be combined, for either the restrictions involved in direct pun¬ 
ishment destroy the free agency which is the essence of trial, or the 
concessions made to free agency weaken, if they do not destroy, the re¬ 
strictions essential to punishment. 

A testing stage should follow these two; but of that enough has been 
said in a former section. 

§ 13. It belongs to the essence of a reformatory prison discipline to impart 
to theprisoner, during his detention, the power as well as the will to earn 
an honest living after his release. This can be done only by giving him, 
while he remains in prison, both the love and the habit of industry. Labor 
is at once a means of support and an auxiliary to virtue. It was a favorite 
maxim with Howard, u Make men diligent, and they will be honest.” 
Work is the only sure basis of a reformatory discipline. “ Unless 
prisoners acquire habits of industry and a liking for some kind of labor,” 
says Mr. Frederic Hill in his admirable Treatise on Crime, u little hope 
can be entertained of their conduct after liberation.” Good resolutions 
are well as far as they go ; but, as a dependence for the future, unsup¬ 
ported by the habit of honest, useful toil, they will prove wholly falla¬ 
cious. It will turn out with them as with sick-bed resolves, which 
usually vanish with returning health. Therefore, it is a matter of prime 
importance to impart to prisoners the knowledge of some regular busi¬ 
ness. The ranks of criminals are chiefly recruited from persons without- 
fixed occupation, and especially from those who have never learned a 
trade. At least eighty per cent, of our imprisoned criminals belong to 
this class, which shows to what an extent the want of a trade becomes 
an occasion of crime. To teach a convict a trade is to place him above 
want, and that is more than half-way toward making him an honest 
man. A convict learning a trade is mastering the art of self-help. He 
feels that he is doing something for himself. As a consequence he is 
filled with hope; he is in better temper; his spirits are cheerful and 
buoyant. This feeling is itself a reformative agency, and the man in 
whom it is found is much more likely to be morally improved by his in¬ 
carceration than another in whom hope, alacrity, and cheerfulness have 
been extinguished. In one of his reports Mr. Bice states that of two 
hundred convicts discharged from the state prison of Maine, only seven 
had been reconvicted, and but two of these had learned a trade. Would 
it not be well, would it not be economical, to make less use of machinery 
in our prisons, and more use of the hands found there ? 

§ 14. Both religion and education are forces of vast potency within as 
well as without prison-walls. But their power and value are so well 
known, and have been so often and forcibly exhibited, that a mere ref¬ 
erence is all that seems necessary in this report. Beligion is the only 
power that is able to resist the irritation that saps the moral forces of 
these men of powerful impulses, whose neglect of its teachings has been 
the occasion of their being immured within prison-walls; while the 


MORAL FORCES TO BE MADE PROMINENT. 


297 


effect of education is to quicken intellect, give new ideas, supply 
food for thought, inspire self-respect, excite an honorable ambition, open 
new fields of exertion, and afford a healthful substitute for low and 
vicious amusements. What more need be said to show the value of 
these agencies in reforming criminals? 

§ 15. All who would engage, with any hope of success, in the work of 
regenerating vicious and criminal humanity, must be animated by a 
hearty desire and intention to accomplish that result. Such a feeling 
and purpose, really entertained by all prison officials, would revolution¬ 
ize prison management. It would change the whole spirit and tone of 
administration ; and when that is done, the fit processes of a reformatory 
discipline will follow as a matter of course. It is not so much any spe¬ 
cific apparatus that is needed, as it is the introduction of a really benev¬ 
olent spirit into our prison work. It is the exercise of the Christian 
virtues as related to man that is wanted; and this, when exhibited under 
the control of principle and conscience, not of mere sentiment and im¬ 
pulse, is also the best manifestation of those virtues in their relation to 
God. Once let prison officers understand that their business is to re¬ 
form —not merely to punish —their fellow-men, and let their desire and in¬ 
tention be conformed to that understanding, and they will speedily be¬ 
come inventive of the methods conducive to that end. Let the principle 
be established in theory and rooted in the heart of those who are to 
apply it, and suitable processes will follow, as naturally as the harvest 
follows the sowing. 

§ 16. Equally essential is a serious conviction on the part of prison 
officers that prisoners are capable of being reformed. This belief is 
indispensable to success, for no man can heartily maintain a discipline 
at war with his inward beliefs. No man can earnestly strive to ac¬ 
complish what in his heart he despairs of accomplishing. Doubt is an 
element of failure; confidence a guarantee of success. Nothing so weak¬ 
ens moral forces as unbelief; nothing so strengthens them as faith. 
u Be it unto thee according to thy faith,” is not a mere theological dic¬ 
tum ; it is equally the statement of a fundamental principle of success 
in all human undertakings, especially when our work lies within the 
realm of mind and morals. 

§ 17. Greater prominence than heretofore should be given to moral 
forces, and less to mere physical power. A broad distinction must be 
made between physical apparatus and moral appliances in prison treat¬ 
ment. By physical apparatus is to be understood whatever is intended 
merely to coerce; by moral appliances, whatever offers a choice, and 
thus strengthens while it guides. The essential distinction is that be¬ 
tween force and persuasion, between fettering the body and gaining the 
soul. The chief reliance, both for preventing crime and weaning from 
it, has been, and is, fear. Fear is no doubt among the most active 
passions and impulses of the soul. We all feel it, more or less, daily ; 
and it ought, undoubtedly, to have a place in every system of crime- 
repression. Nevertheless, there is not an impulse of any kind—love, 
hatred, desire, hope, avarice—that does not continually overcome it, 
even in the most timid. Is it rational, then, in the effort to repress 
crime, to rest our chief confidence on the weaker rather than the stronger 
agencies, especially when it is considered that the promptings to crime 
usually proceed from the most powerful impulses of the human breast? 
There needs to be introduced into prison discipline a higher aim, a treat¬ 
ment of prisoners that seeks to gain the will, and not merely to coerce 
the body. What is wanted is, that they be trained to become virtuous 
freemen, and not merely that they be reduced, for a time, to the posi- 


298 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


tion of well-ordered bondiuen, taught the virtues of a state of slavery— 
obedience, submission, punctuality, order, and the like—but, of neces¬ 
sity, accompanied by a large admixture also of the vices of slavery— 
deceit, duplicity, evasion, latent but cherished resentment, and a thicker 
cloak of hypocrisy, which, however, only conceals, with more or less art, 
the continued rottenness within. 

Criminals are too commonly considered the representatives of crime : 
and harshness toward them is thought to be a legitimate manifestation 
of our detestation of it. Should they not rather be looked upon as its 
first and saddest victims, to be pitied as well as blamed ; to be pitied 
all the more for being bankrupt in virtue and character as well as in 
means 9 If we would earnestly seek to raise them from this state, not 
by weak and unwise indulgence, but by a judicious course of firm and 
even severe training, which would develop their manly and stimulate 
their moral nature, we should show a better understanding of the sub¬ 
ject and of our duty in relation to it, and be much more successful in 
the great end of repressing crime. Only let us try; try in good faith 
and with good will; not halting between two opinions, but steadily and 
energetically acting upon one. The result would not long remain doubt¬ 
ful ; and the greatest and gravest moral problem of our day would be 
at length satisfactorily solved. 

All past systems of prison discipline have been, in the main, but 
modifications of force. Authority has been their chief, too often their 
exclusive, reliance. The result, so far as reforming criminals is con¬ 
cerned, has been failure. Let organized persuasion now have a trial; 
not coaxing, not pampering, not indulgence—a system as pernicious as 
it is false and feeble—but'persuasion, with such forces behind it, result¬ 
ing from a judicious application of motives, as, while leaving the will 
free, will yet, by a sort of moral necessity, determine it to a right 
choice. 

The coercive system would seem to be an inherently ^and essentially 
vicious one, insomuch that precisely where it is most perfect, it will be 
found ultimately least successful. Mind can be gained only by appeal¬ 
ing to mind. Fettering the body is even directly opposed to this. It 
has its immediate and apparent advantages; but they are too dearly 
purchased. If we will actively employ our prisoners, and by suitable 
means cultivate in them the daily practice of the manly and social virtues, 
they will protect themselves from degrading vices much better than we 
can protect them by walls and bolts; and the moral triumph thus 
achieved will be as improving and strengthening to them as the 
triumph won by physical force is humiliating and enfeebling. 

Let me briefly indicate two or three of those moral forces whose use 
would be likely to be attended with the best results. 

The ability of the prisoner to better his condition while in prison 
through his own exertions—in other words, a regulated self-interest—is 
one of the mightiest as well as the healthiest of these forces. Montesi- 
nos found this so in his prison at Valencia. He convinced himself that 
men in prison, as well as men outside, need the stimulus of some per¬ 
sonal advantage to be derived from their exertions. He says that what 
no severity of punishment or constancy in applying it could force out 
of his men, a very moderate personal interest readily obtained. In 
different ways, therefore, he constantly applied this powerful stimulant, 
and the excellent results it yielded and the fruitful germs of reform 
developed by it convinced him at length that the most inefficacious of 
all methods in a prison and the most fatal to every chance of reform 
are punishments carried to the length of harshness. It was not, he 


MORAL FORCES TO BE MADE PROMINENT. 


299 


says, till after many trials of severity that he ultimately made the prin¬ 
ciple of encouragement and persuasion the basis of all his operations 
on the minds of the prisoners. He caused forty-three distinct trades to 
be taught in as many different workshops, and stimulated industry and 
skill by allowing the prisoners a large share in the product of "their 
toil. The administration of Colonel Montesinos lasted fifteen years, 
and the results were: 1, ready submission, few punishments, and a high 
state of discipline; 2, the ability to dispense almost entirely with a paid 
staff by the substitution of the most intelligent of the reformed crimi¬ 
nals as under-officers ; 3, the complete self-support of the establishment, 
so that never a dollar was called for from the state; 4, the reduction of 
relapses from 40 per cent.—the average prior to his incumbency—to 
zero, not a single recommittal having taken place during the last three 
years of his administration, and an average of only one percent, during 
the ten years preceding. 

The cultivation of a feeling of self-respect in prisoners develops a 
moral force, of great potency in prison administration. Self-respect is one 
of the most powerful sentiments of the human mind, for the reason that 
it is the most intensely personal. Hence the maxim, “Do not further 
degrade in prison the man who has come to it already degraded by his 
crimes,” should be constantly and carefully applied in prison treatment. 
No one will ever beneficially influence prisoners who does not seek to 
strengthen in their breasts the sentiment of manhood and personal dig¬ 
nity. 

Moral power over prisoners may be attained through frquent, 
frank, kindly conversations with them—not too familiar, but judicious 
and self-respecting. This was an agency constantly employed by 
Maconochie, and he ascribes to it much of the influence that he 
gained over his men. He encouraged all to address him with freedom, 
and he would not even listen to a man unless he stood erect, looked him 
in the face, and spoke to him like a man. He used to say to them that 
he would rather have a man insolent than cringing. He encouraged all 
to speak freely to him, and to express, without reserve, their views and 
sentiments on whatever w as the subject of conversation. By this means 
he was enabled to sound their impressions and the sources of them 
much more deeply than would otherwise have been possible. He made 
it a special object when thus conversing with a prisoner to interrogate 
him about his early youth and training, his parents, the lessons they 
had taught him, the example they had set him, &c. His design in 
this was to call up the associations of earlier days, and thus endeavor to 
revive in him the good impulses and principles w hich had guided his con¬ 
duct before he became corrupted and seared by the scenes through which 
he had subsequently passed. In this way he obtained an immense 
power over his prisoners, which he skillfully and effectively applied as 
an agent in their reformation. 

“ The law of love and love in law”—in other words, kindness duly regu¬ 
lated—is a moral force of almost illimitable pow T er. The kindness proposed 
is not, however, that which seeks merely to alleviate the immediate suffer¬ 
ing of prisoners, which they have deserved and ought to undergo. It is 
rather a rational, prudent, "forecasting kindness, which seeks to lift them 
up, to strengthen them, and to prepare them for the battle of life. Such 
a spirit universally introduced into our prisons would work wonders, 
both on the character of the prisoners and the movement of crime. 
This spirit once there, this aspiration after the moral improvement of 
their charge felt by the officers and recognized by them as a duty, would 
prove both inventive and creative in their hands. It would find or make 


300 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


means to accomplish the reform of their prisoners, and when one agency 
proved abortive it would have recourse to others; it would not be wholly 
baulked. Further, as we see in the case of M. Dernetz and Mettray, 
such a spirit having once found a lodgment in the breast of prison offi¬ 
cers, and constantly working itself out into action, would not long be 
confined within the prison walls, but would follow into society, after 
their discharge, those who had felt its beneficent power during their 
captivity, and would thus tend prodigiously to prevent relapses and, as 
a consequence, to diminish the volume of crime. What a change would 
the general possession and manifestation of this spirit produce in the 
tone and temper with which prisoners are treated! This is now too 
often supercilious, if not even contemptuous, whereas it should be rather 
that in which patients are received and treated in a hospital. Certainly 
the hatefulness of the crime committed should be freely expressed. On 
this head there should be no compromise. But apart from this, the 
criminal should be sincerely regarded and studiously treated as an object 
of compassion, fallen but recoverable, and sent to prison expressly to 
that end. A tone of hopefulness for his case should thus be maintained, 
and confidence felt and shown that, when put in the right way, he will 
be manly enough to abide in it. This idea of manliness and courage as 
belonging to virtue, and of abjectness and cowardice as inhering in vice, 
should be especially insisted on. The greatest benefit has resulted from 
it in dealing with rough and fallen natures. It is an idea that comes 
home to many men otherwise hard to be impressed, and to’ whom, on 
the other hand, any approach to whining or cant is distasteful, and 
becomes an object of scorn and scoffing. 

It is important to note, in passing, that a liberal application of the 
law of kindness to prisoners is not incompatible with a calm, steady, 
resolute discipline. Tenderness may be fitly and successfully blended 
with justice in dealing with them. It is not a just rigor against which 
the prisoner rebels, for that may be as kind as it is wise; it is rather 
against capricious harshness, which is cruel and irritating for the very 
reason that it lacks the element of justice. Criminals are not much 
accustomed to kind treatment, and therefore they are the more touched 
by it. Convince them that you have a genuine sympathy, show them a 
kindness which evidently has its seat in the heart, and their sensibility 
is instantly awakened. This principle keeps a lingering hold upon our 
nature even in the last and lowest degree of human wickedness. When 
all other generous sensibilities are gone, this survives and shows itself 
even in the most hardened criminals. There is, somehow and some- 
w r here, a soft part about them, w T hicli will give way before the demon¬ 
strations of a genuine tenderness and love. This one germ of a dormant 
virtue, this solitary element of an improved character, is found to out¬ 
live the destruction of all others; insomuch that, fallen as a brother 
may be from the moralities which once adorned him, the manifested 
good-will of his fellow-man still carries a charm and an influence along 
with it. There lies a regenerative and redemptive power just here, 
which no degradation can crush, no depravity extinguish. 

§ 18. Individualization is an essential principle of a reformatory 
prison disciple. There was a general agreement in the congress on 
this point. It was held unanimously that, to insure the highest improve¬ 
ment of prisoners, prisoners must, to a certain extent, like the different 
members of a household, be treated individually. While all alike are 
placed under a general law, the conduct of each, as directed by it, 
should be specially and minutely noted. The improving effect of this 
would be found very great. It would be a first step toward restoring to 


INDIVIDUALIZATION-SPECIAL EDUCATION OF OFFICERS. 301 

each that feeling of self-respect without which no recovery will ever he 
found permanent. Each should be enabled to know, if possible, from 
day to day, and certainly from week to week, the light in which his con¬ 
duct is viewed, in all important particulars, by those placed over him; 
for thus alone, as his good purpose strengthens, will he be enabled to 
correct that wherein he may be found deficient. To this end a card 
might be huug in his cell, with four rows of figures constantly kept 
upon it. The first should indicate the prisoner’s general conduct; the 
second his degree of industry and exertion ; the third his attention and 
improvement, as noted by the chaplain; and the fourth the same, as 
shown by the schoolmaster’s record. By this means, whenever the 
warden or chaplain, or any person entitled to make such perquisition, goes 
round, the whole conduct—and thence the character—of the individual 
would be instantly patent, and commendation, censure, caution, advice, 
or exhortation could be addressed to him as each might be needed. 
These marks would also form the basis of those estimations of character 
according to which prisoners would be passed through the different 
stages of treatment, rising successively from grade to grade, until, be¬ 
ginning at the lowest, they should have at length reached the highest. 

It will be found important that rewards for exertion and improve¬ 
ment, other than physical comforts, be progressively added; or even 
that they should, at the discretion of the authorities, be substituted for 
such comforts. It is right and fair, and even improving, that consider¬ 
ation for the last should be used as a stimulus in the lower stages of 
reformatory treatment. Such, indeed, is the arrangmeut of Providence 
in human society, and we cannot copy a better type. But in proportion 
as the higher nature of the prisoner is developed and cultivated, higher 
objects of desire should be suggested and made similarly attainable, in 
order at once to keep the upward tendency active, and to raise the char¬ 
acter of its aspirations. For this purpose a longer allowance of gas¬ 
light, a wider scope of books and instruction, and increased facilities 
of communication with families and respectable friends outside, and 
other like indulgences will be found powerful and most improving en¬ 
couragements. At no stage, however, should any remission be made of 
the call for continued active exertion. To reward a prisoner, in any 
part of his course, by permitted idleness, is to undo the improvement 
that may have been already effected in him by dissociating the ideas of 
sustained effort and success, which should, as much as possible, be kept 
inseparably together in his mind. Even when partially sick, employ¬ 
ment of some kind should, wherever practicable, be thus given him. 
The surgeon should be constantly invited to suggest such. Not infre¬ 
quently this will even promote recovery—if not otherwise, yet by making 
a state of sickness not entirely a state of exemption. 

§ 19. It is almost superfluous to remark that such a prison system 
and prison administration as that sketched, all too imperfectly and 
feebly, in the preceding sections of this concluding chapter, cannot be 
carried out in its true spirit, nor with the necessary intelligence and 
vigor, by the agents at present engaged in the work. We have, happily, 
even now, many heads of prisons, holding sound views, imbued with the 
right spirit, thoroughly competent to the duties of their position, and 
working with zeal and intelligence in fulfilment of their high mission. 
These have a few able and well-qualified assistants, who are animated 
by the same sentiments as themselves, and are lending to their aims and 
efforts a noble and efficient co-operation. But the mass of prison officials, 
throughout the country, are sadly deficient in the broad intelligence, 
good feeling, self-control, sound common sense, high moral principle,. 


302 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


strong religious feeling, and other essential qualifications requisite to 
their calling. It is idle to suppose that an equitable and humane— 
above all, a reformatory—prison code can be carried out successfully, 
where a fit administration cannot be had. To deal with delinquents, 
not by short and sharp methods, but through such pains-taking, cautious, 
and tardy processes as abstract justice indicates, and the attainment of 
genuine and permanent reformatory results imperatively demands, 
would require a class of agents which is yet, as a body, to be created. 
Nor, in my humble judgment, can such a creation ever be effected, ex¬ 
cept by special effort, special education, special training to that end. 
The reformation of fallen humanity is a work as complex, as delicate, as 
difficult, and demanding qualities and qualifications of intellect, judg¬ 
ment, and heart as high and as broad as any ever committed to the hand of 
man, and as worthy of being raised to the dignity of a-regular calling or 
profession as any other within the wide range of human employment. 
If law, medicine, and divinity; if engineering, military command, and 
school-keeping; if sculpture, painting, and music; if even every handi¬ 
craft requiring mere manual dexterity demand a special technical edu¬ 
cation and training in those who devote themselves to these callings, 
why not equally the work and calling of a prison keeper, whose proper 
business—the regeneration and redemption of fallen immortals, the cure 
of souls all sick and leprous with sin—is the peer of any of them in 
the dignity, grandeur, and beneficence of its aims. Mettray, with its 
glorious chief, who had the wisdom to establish his training-school even 
before he established his prison—Mettray, with its magnificent reforma¬ 
tory results, as the fruit and demonstration of that wisdom—is a living, 
visible, irrefragable argument in support of the value, the importance, 
the absolute necessity of a special preparation on the part of prison of¬ 
ficers for their work. Let that argument, for present purposes, stand 
in the place of all others. 

§ 20. The necessary complement of every prison system, which really 
aims to reform its subjects, is a comprehensive and efficient agency for 
the care of discharged prisoners. The moment of their liberation is, for 
them and for society, so far as they are concerned, a crisis whose gravity 
cannot easily be exaggerated. Their good intentions and their actual 
improvement in prison are then severely tested. The question is 
to be determined whether they will pursue the path of virtue, or return 
to crime. A few weeks, at most a few months, will, in all likelihood, 
decide the point. The trial is often one of terrible severity to the dis¬ 
charged convict. The temptations which surround him are strong and 
pressing. There is a fearful conflict in his soul. He wishes to do right, 
but is sorely urged to do wrong. He desires to stand, but trembles lest 
he should fall. He would do good, but evil is present with him. He 
starts at his own shadow. He ihels that, like Cain, he is “ a fugitive 
and a vagabond on the earth.” Terrible, indeed, are his struggles, for 
he has foes within as well as without to combat. His soul is driven to 
and fro between the frowns of the world and the upbraidings of con¬ 
science. These awaken remorse; those, despair. What does the released 
prisoner need in this, with him, supreme hour % First of all, sympathy, 
which will act like a cordial upon his bruised and fainting heart. Then 
he needs words of encouragement and hope, of wise and affectionate 
counsel, which will still further refresh and strengthen his spirits. He 
needs, moreover, pecuniary help. Some money or its equivalent he 
must have, or crime becomes a necessity. The best provision of this 
kind would be to allow him some share in his earnings as a prisoner, 
to be retained for him to the day of his liberation ; but until such al- 


CARE OF DISCHARGED CONVICTS. 


303 


lowauce is accorded, which is equally the dictate of justice and policy, 
private benevolence, or, better still, the state, should extend some as¬ 
sistance of this sort, enough at least to enable him to “ make a start in 
the world.’ 1 But most of all, the discharged prisoner needs employment. 
At the earliest possible moment, therefore, he should be put in a position 
to help himself. Self-help is the best help he can have, for it gives in¬ 
dependence, self-respect, and inward force. Sympathy, kind words, 
good advice, are all excellent in their place; but they are useless—worse 
than that, they are mockery—while you leave the man hungry and 
shivering, with nothing to do. But back your words with acts; give 
work as well as counsel; and then the words and the counsel have a 
mighty power ; they become living forces. 

Messrs. Haines and Howell, commissioners from the State of New 
Jersey to the Congress of London, in the report submitted by them to 
the governor of the State, have offered some excellent suggestions on 
this point. After citing the declaration of the congress that “the 
prisoner, on his discharge, should be systematically aided to obtain em¬ 
ployment,” the commissioners add: 

“ The truth of this sentiment has been frequently and painfully proved. 
Prisoners who, when discharged, gave evidence of thorough reforma¬ 
tion, and who sincerely believed that they could keep their solemn res¬ 
olution to live honestly, for want of employment and consequent poverty, 
and taunted, and sometimes threatened by those who knew of their con¬ 
viction, have been driven to the haunts of vice and plunged again into 
crime. With the aid of some friendly hand to afford them suitable em¬ 
ployment and means of self support, many such might have become good 
citizens and contributors to the material wealth of the community. 

“An agency for providing discharged prisoners with employment is a 
present and pressing necessity—one that is deeply and paiufully felt. 
In some States this has been committed to individual effort and benevo¬ 
lent associations; but it is obviously the duty of the State, and properly 
devolving upon it. If the protection of society is to be secured by the 
imprisonment and reformation of the convict, surely that protection 
should be continued by such measures as will provide against a relapse 
into crime and a repetition of the former process of punishment. 

“An officer of the prison, or what would be more effectual, an agent 
appointed for the purpose, charged with the duty of ascertaining the 
capacity of the prisoner, and securing for him suitable employment, 
would do much to promote the peace and safety of society, and secure 
many unhappy persons from temptation and repetition of crime, and aid 
in restoring them to the condition of useful citizens. 

“If it be objected that the appointment of such an agent would increase 
the offices of the prison and the expenses of the State, it may be an¬ 
swered that such increased expense will prove to be the truest economy. 
The investment of the small sum for the salary and expenses of the 
agent would insure laj’ge profits to the State by saving the charges of 
leconviction and support of the prisoner, and by rendering him, who had 
been a burden, a contributor to the material property of the State. 

“ This is the financial and lowest point of consideration of the subject. 
If we regard the moral and social effects of such a measure, and com¬ 
pare the condition of one reconvicted, and his influence upon his family 
and the community, with that of one reformed and retarded to the ranks 
of honest and productive industry, we can have no doubt of the pro¬ 
priety, the necessity, and the economy of such an olfice.” 

§ 21. So far, the “ suggestions and recommendations” submitted by the 
undersigned have been of a general character. He ventures to add a par- 


304 


INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS. 


agraph more specific in its aim. The National Government has no prisons 
of its own. It has a criminal code and criminal courts. Men charged with 
criminal offenses are arraigned, tried, and convicted under its authority; 
but, when so convicted, it has tio prisons to which it can send them for 
treatment. It is compelled to sentence them for punishment to the prisons 
of the States in which they happen to have had their trial; at least, such 
is the general practice. It has no control, no influence, over the discipline 
of the prisons to which they are committed. That discipline may be cru¬ 
elly severe or unwisely lenient ; it may make its subjects worse instead of 
better; it may send them out more depraved and hardened than when 
they entered, and more certain to continue their evil courses; but the 
government has not a word to say; it cannot lift a finger; it cannot ex¬ 
ert a single counteracting force; it can only sit silent and let the w T ork of 
corruption go on. Is this wise ? Is it right ? Is it statesmanship ? Has 
the government no responsibility in regard to these men wdiom it has 
convicted of crime? Is their salvation a matter in which it has no con¬ 
cern, no interest, no duty? Is it not bound, in honor and conscience, to 
try to reform them and send them back to society regenerated in pur¬ 
pose and in life, with the will and the power to eat bread earned by honest 
toil? If it has any such duty iu regard to these men, can the obliga¬ 
tion be discharged by sending them it knows not whither; by commit¬ 
ting them to it knows not whom; by subjecting them to a treatment 
which it has no power to control, and to influences in regard to which 
it does not even know whether they are good or bad, salutary or perni¬ 
cious? General Coburn, chairman of the Military Committee of the 
House of Kepresentatives, and General Logan, chairman of the Military 
Committee of the Senate, succeeded in getting an act passed by the last 
Congress providing for the establishment of a United States prison, in 
which prisoners tried and sentenced by military courts may receive the 
benefits of a humane and reformatory discipline; for so the act declares 
in express terms. Whatever reasons there may be for such a prison 
and the application of such a discipline in the case of military prison¬ 
ers, there are many-fold more and more cogent reasons for such appli¬ 
ances in the case of persons convicted of crime in the civil courts of the 
United States, both because these latter are much more numerous and 
because they stand in much greater need of a reformatory treatment, their 
offenses being, for the most part, less against technical rules and more 
against law and morality, and springing, therefore, from a deeper moral 
taint. For these reasons, and others that might be adduced, the under¬ 
signed does not hesitate to “suggest and recommend 1 ’ the immediate estab¬ 
lishment of one prison, at least, for the treatment of persons convicted by 
the civil courts of the United States, and the addition of others as they 
may be found necessary or convenient, in which a discipline, based upon 
the principles set forth in this closing chapter of his report, may be hon¬ 
estly, intelligently, and faithfully applied. 

All of which is respectfully submitted to the President: 

E. C. WINES, 

Commissioner , Ac., Ac. 



TRANSACTIONS 

OF THE 

NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS, 

HELD AT 

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, JANUARY 21 - 24 , 1873 ; 

BEING THE 

SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NATIONAL TRISON ASSOCIATION 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 

EDITED BY 

E. C. WINES, D. D„ LL. D., 

^Secretary of the Association. 


H. Ex. 185-20 















TRANSACTIONS. 


I.—OEENING ADDEESSES—OBGANIZATION—STANDING COM¬ 
MITTEES— EOLL OF MEMBEES. 


The National Prison Eeform Congress, called under the auspices of 
the National Prison Association of the United States, assembled at 
Masonic Temple, Baltimore, Maryland, at 8 o’clock, p. in., January 21, 


The Hon. Horatio Seymour, of New York, president of the Associa¬ 
tion, took the chair in virtue of his office, and called the meeting to 
order. 

On invitation of the president, prayer was offered by the Eev. Samuel 
J. Baird, D.D., of Virginia. 

Governor Seymour then delivered the opening address, as follows: 


GOVERNOR SEYMOUR’S ADDRESS. 


Tiie name of this association fails to give a full idea of its scope and 
aims. In terms, they seem to be limited to that class of men who have 
brought themselves under the penalties of the law. But the moment we 
begin to study the character of criminals and the causes of crime, we 
find that we are forced back to a scrutiny of our social system and of 
the weakness as well as the wickedness of our fellow-men. It is because 
the subjects of pauperism and crime thus lead to an analysis of human 
nature, and to the consideration of social aspects, that they have been 
made matters of profound thought by able publicists and large- 
minded statesmen. At first thought it seems that the condition of a 
small body of men, who have offended local laws, should be left to the 
thoughtful control of local authorities, but it is soon found that the con¬ 
siderations involved are as broad as the spread of the human race. 

For these reasons, leading men of different nations were drawn to¬ 
gether at the late International Convention, at London. For these rea¬ 
sons, this association was formed. Crime knows no geographical limits, 
no boundaries of states. It is, in its nature, at war with the welfare of 
the human race. It must be opposed by the united wisdom and virtue 
of all nationalities and of all forms of civilization. 

While local laws must frame penal codes, and local societies do the 
work of lifting up fallen men, still much is gained by a wide spread sym¬ 
pathy and co-operation. There are many things which are beyond the 
reach of state action, in a moral point of view; things which do not 
come under the cognizance of laws, but which deeply affect the welfare 
of our whole country. 

At the first view, our efforts seem to be limited to the justice which 
punishes crime, and to the charity which tries to reform the criminal. 
But we are soon led into a wider field of duty. We are apt to look 
upon the inmates of prisons as exceptional men, unlike the mass of our 
people. We feel that they are thorns in the body politic, which should 
be drawn out and put where they will do no more harm. We regard 



308 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


them as men who run counter to the currents of society, thus making 
disorder and mischief. These are errors. In truth, they are men who 
run with the currents of society, and who outrun them. They are men 
who, in a great degree, are moved and directed by the impulses around 
them ; their characters are formed by the civilization in which they move. 
They are, in many respects, the representative men of a country. It is 
a hard thing to draw an indictment against a criminal which is not, in 
some respects, an indictment of the community in which he has lived. An 
intelligent stranger, who should visit the prisons of foreign countries 
and should hear the histories of their inmates, would get a better idea 
of the inner workings of their civilization than could be gained by in¬ 
tercourse with a like number of their citizens moving in the mere con¬ 
ventional circles of society. As a rule, wrong-doing is the growth of 
influences pervading the social system, as pestilences are bred by mala¬ 
rias. Our study into this subject soon teaches us that prisons are moral 
hospitals, where moral diseases are not only cared for, but science learns 
the moral laws of life; where it learns what endangers the general welfare 
of the community ; what insidious pestilential vapors permeate society, 
carrying moral disease and death into its homes. Prisoners are men like 
ourselves; and if we would learn the dangers which lurk in our path¬ 
ways, we must learn how they stumbled and fell. I do not doubt but 
some men are more prone to vice than others. But after listening to 
thousands of prayers for pardon, I can hardly recall a case where I did 
not feel that I might have fallen as my fellow-man has done, if I had 
been subjected to the same demoralizing influences and pressed by the 
same temptations. I repeat here what I have said on other occasions,, 
that after a long experience with men in all conditions of life, after 
having felt, as much as most men, the harsh injustice springing from 
the strife and passions of the world, I have constantly learned to think 
more kindly of the hearts of men, and to think less of their heads. 

If we find that crimes are, in a large degree, the hot-bed growth of 
social influences; if the weakness of human nature is always open to 
their attacks; if they may, at any time, enter into our homes and strike 
at the family circle, then we must at least guard against them as we do 
against the pestilence. 

To protect the public health and to learn the laws of life, we build 
and sustain, with liberal hands, hospitals where the sick and wounded 
can be cured. The moral hospital should be regarded with an equal 
interest. In each of them we should seek to cure the inmates. In each 
of them we should seek to find out the secret causes of disease. With 
regard to both, we should always, in a large-minded way, feel that the 
laws of moral and physical life are a thousand times more important to 
the multitudes of the world at large than they are to the few inmates 
who languish within their gloomy walls. 

The public hold in high honor the man of science who treads the walks 
of the hospital to relieve suifering, to find out the facts which will en¬ 
able him to ward off sickness and death from others. This association 
appeals to the public for the same sympathy and support for those who 
labor to lift up their unhappy brethren from moral degradation, and 
at the same time to do the greater work of tracing out the springs 
and sources of crime, and of warning the public of its share of guilt in 
sowing the seeds of immorality by its tastes, maxims, and usages. W T e 
love to think that the inmates of cells are unlike ourselves. We would 
like to disown our common humanity with the downcast and depraved 
We are apt to thank God that we are not like other men ; but with closer 
study and deeper thought we find they are ourselves, under different 


governor Seymour’s opening address. 


303 


circumstances. And the circumstances that made them what they are 
abound in our civilization, and may, at any time, make others fall who 
do not dream of danger. 

It is a mistake when we hold that criminals are merely perverse men, 
who are at war with social influences; on the other hand, they are the 
outgrowth of those influences. Crimes always take the h*ues and aspects 
of the country in which they are committed. They show not only guilty 
men, but a guilty people. The world deems those nations to be debased 
where crimes abound. It does not merely say that the laws are unwise, 
or that the judiciary is corrupt, but it charges the guilt home to the 
whole society. This is just; for most of the crimes which disgrace us 
could not be done if there was not an indifference to their causes on the 
part of the community. As certain plagues which sweep men into their 
graves cannot rage without foul air, so many crimes cannot prevail 
without wide spread moral malaria. It is the greed for gold, the love of 
luxury in the American people, which have caused the legislative frauds, 
the municipal corruptions, the violations of trusts, which excite alarm 
in our land. It is the admiration of wealth, no matter how gained, 
which incites and emboldens the desperate speculator in commercial 
centers to sport with the sacred interests of labor, to unsettle the busi¬ 
ness of honest industry, by playing tricks with the standards of values. 
Those who use the stocks of great corporations as machines for gam¬ 
bling schemes, are more deliberately and artfully dishonest than the 
more humble swindler who throws his loaded dice. Many of the trans¬ 
actions of our capitalists are more hurtful to the welfare of our people 
than the acts of thieves and robbers. In the better days of American 
simplicity, honesty, and patriotism, these things could not have been done. 
No one would then have dared to face a people indignant at such rapa¬ 
cious greed. Such influences have led to frauds, defalcations, breaches 
of trust. They have filled our prisons and overwhelmed many house¬ 
holds with sbame and sorrow. Yet the authors of such things are 
honored for their wealth, and we ask, with eagerness, how rich do they 
get? and not, how do they get riches ? 

make the public feel that criminals are men of like passions with 
ourselves, that crime is an infectious as well as a malignant disease, and 
that its sources are not so much personal inclination as general demor 
alization, are the great first steps toward reform. When we feel that 
disease may enter our own houses arid seize upon the mental or moral 
weaknesses of those we love, we are ready to study its causes and its 
workings. We should then uphold and honor those men of humanity 
and true statesmanship who study out the causes of moral stains, as we 
honor and support those men of science who search out, in sick-rooms 
or hospitals, the causes and courses of the complaints which kill the 
body. 

He who masters the diagnosis of crime gains a key to the mysteries 
of our nature and to the secret sources of demoralization, which opens 
to him a knowledge of the great principles of public and private reform, 
the true methods of a good administration of laws. Pauperism and 
crime have been made the subjects of earnest thought by the best and 
wisest men of the world, not only on account of their intrinsic interest, 
but also on account of 'their relationship to all other matters of good 
government. Neither of them can be driven out of existence; they will 
always be problems to vex statesmanship; but they must always be 
battled with. In the social edifice they are like fires, ever kindling in 
its different parts, which are to be kept under by watchfulness and care. 
If neglected, they burst out into the flames of anarchy and revolution, 
and sweep away forms of government. 


310 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


These subjects must be studied directly and in their moral aspects. 
There is a pervading idea in our country that the spread of knowledge 
will check crime. No one values learning more than I do, but it is no 
specific for immorality and vice. Without moral and religious training, 
it frequently becomes an aid to crime. Science, mechanical skill, a 
knowledge of business affairs, even the refinements and accomplish¬ 
ments of life, are used by offenders against law. Knowledge fights on 
both sides in the battle between right and wrong, at this age. It lays 
siege to banks; it forces open vaults stronger than old castles ; it forges 
and counterfeits. The most dangerous criminal is the educated, intel¬ 
lectual violator of the law, for he has all the resources of art at his 
command—the forces of mechanics, the subtleties of chemistry, the 
knowledge of man’s ways and passions. Learning, by itself, only 
changes the aspect of immorality. Virtue is frequently found with the 
simple and uneducated, and vice with the educated. Surrounded by 
glittering objects within their reach, our servant girls resist more temp¬ 
tations than any class in society. 

We must look beyond the accidents of knowledge or ignorance, if we 
wish to learn the springs of action. To check vice there must be high 
moral standards in the public mind. The American mind must move 
upon a higher plane. To reform convicts, their hopes must be aroused 
and their better instincts worked upon. I never yet found a man so 
untamable that there was not something of good on which to build a 
hope. I never yet found a man so good that he need not fear a fall. 
Through the warp and woof of the worst man’s character there run 
some threads of gold, and in the best there are base materials. It is 
this web of entwined good and evil in men’s character which make the 
problems and perplexities of the legislator and judge. 

While there is no honest dealing with this subject unless the American 
people are charged with their share of guilt, and while Christian charity 
leads us to take the kindest view we can of every man, it does not follow 
that crime should be dealt with in a feeble way. Let the laws be swift, 
stern, and certain in their action. What they say, let them do; for 
certainty, more than severity, carries a dread of punishment. Let the 
ways of bringing offenders to justice be direct, clear, and untrammeled. 
The technicalities of pleading, proof, and proceedings, in many of our 
States, are painfully absurd. To the minds of most men, a criminal 
trial is a mysterious jumble. The public have no confidence that the 
worst criminal will be punished; the worst criminal cherishes, at all 
times, a hope of escape. In every part of our country there is a vague 
idea that certain men, of legal skill, can extricate offenders without regard 
to the merits of their case. This is a fruitful cause of crimes. There is 
not, in the minds of the American people, a clear, distinct conception 
of our penal laws, their actions, and their results. Not less hurtful to 
justice are those fluctuations of the public mind, which shakes off, spas¬ 
modically, its customary indifference; fiercely demands a conviction 
of those who happen, at such times, to be charged with crime ; and thus 
makes popular clamor take the place of judicial calmness and impar¬ 
tiality. 

No one feels that there is, in this country, a clear, strong, even flow 
of administration of criminal laws. The mood of the popular mind has 
too much to do with judicial proceedings. 

The evils connected with the administration of justice in our land are 
due, in a good degree, to the swift changes in the material condition of 
our country. An increase of our numbers of more than a million each 
year, of more than twenty-five hundred each day, of more than one hun- 


governor Seymour’s opening address. 


311 


tired each hour, explains many of the causes of our overburdened sys¬ 
tem of penal laws, framed for a different state of society. Our perplexi¬ 
ties are increased by the fact that more than one-quarter of this daily 
addition to our population is made up of those who come from other 
countries, strangers to our customs and laws, and, in many instances, 
ignorant of our language. 

History gives no account of such vast increase of the numbers of any 
country by constant, peaceful accretion. Conquest rarely makes as 
many prisoners of war as we make captives to the peaceful advantages 
of our continent. They bring us wealth and power ; they also bring us 
many problems to solve. British laws deal with British subjects. French 
courts decide upon the guilt or innocence of Frenchmen. Germany 
shapes, by its usages and customs, the ideas of right and wrong in the 
minds of the Teutonic races. But we, in America, have to deal with 
and act upon all nationalities, all phases of civilization. While thesq 
facts palliate the defects of our penal laws and of their administration, 
they certainly make more clear and urgent the duty which demands 
that we keep pace with the swift changes going on around us. More 
than this, our circumstances enable us to take the lead in the great 
work of reform, as we deal with more plastic materials than are found 
in the fixed condition of older nations. Here, too, we have a broader 
field, filled with men of varied phases and aspects of different civiliza¬ 
tions, in which we can study the wants and weaknesses, the virtues and 
vices of the human race. 

For a series of years, nearly three hundred thousand emigrants have 
been annually landed at the harbor of New York. Disorder and crime are 
always active along the line of march of great armies. I believe there 
is no instance in history of a movement of the human race so vast and 
long continued. I am glad to state a fact which in some degree palliates 
the disgrace which attaches to the administration of justice and the con¬ 
duct of public affairs in that great city. But I should fall short of telling 
the whole truth if I did not also say that the discredit of that great city 
mainly springs from the sad fact that its men of wealth, as a body, lack 
that genuine self-respect which leads to a faithful, high-minded per¬ 
formance of the duties each citizen owes to the public. 

Is there any other basis upon which we can found this great work of 
patriotism and philanthropy than the one contemplated by this associa¬ 
tion % It may, at first view, seem to be limited to a small class, but it 
opens up into a broad field of unpartisan, unsectarian labor. The objects 
we have in view, although they make our prisons their starting-point, 
are so wide in their bearings that they brough t together, at the London 
international association, in the interests of our common humanity, men 
of the best minds, from most of the countries of Europe and America. 
These, in despite of their differences of creeds, usages, language, and 
form of civilization, could act in accord in devising measures to lift up 
the fallen, and to spread the principles of morality and justice among 
the peoples of the world. It is found that true statesmanship, like true 
religion, begins with visiting the prisoners and helping the poor. 

It is certain that in our own country Edward Livingston, the public 
man who ranks highest in European regard for intellectual ability, 
gained his position by his great work, “The Penal Laws of Louisiana.” 
When it was the fashion in the scientific world to hold that men and 
animals were dwarfed on this continent, this work was brought forward 
by our friends in Europe as a proof that statesmanship was full-grown 
here. It is a remarkable fact that an able foreign writer selected the 
Louisiana code and the proclamation of General Jackson against the 


312 • NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 3873. 

doctrine of secession as tlie two ablest productions of the American 
mind, not knowing that they both came from the same pen. An expo¬ 
sition of Mr. Livingston’s system lias lately been published in France, 
under the auspices of the French Institute, by M. Charles Lucas, a 
member of the Institute, and formerly president of the council of inspect¬ 
ors of the penal institutions of that country. M. Lucas is a distin¬ 
guished writer and leader in the work of criminal reform. He belongs 
to that body of large-minded, philanthropic men who seek to benefit 
humanity by wise systems of legislation. A certain breadth and reach 
of mind mark all those men who have entered upon the study of penal 
laws and the reformation of criminals. 

The Louisiana code is not only remarkable as the product of one 
man’s mind—and I know of no like instance in history—but it is also 
distinguished by the fact that its republication is called for after the 
lapse of half a century. The new edition has an able introduction by 
*Chief Justice Chase. Only fleeting honors are gained by those who 
deal with the passing phases of society, while enduring honors are won 
by those who grasp the lasting problems of government and laws. It is 
to be hoped that our statesmen will learn to follow in the higher path¬ 
ways marked out by Mr. Livingston. 

While there is much to condemn in our system of laws and their 
administration, there is much to admire in tlie practical workings of 
many of our prisons. In some respects we are in advance of other 
peoples. Much has been done in many of our States to improve the con¬ 
dition of criminals, and much more to rescue the young from courses of 
vice and destruction. I should be glad to speak of the instances of 
ability and self-devotion shown by men who have charge of public or 
private charities established for the reformation of offenders. They 
would lend a weight to my argument which my reasoning cannot give. 
But I must leave these things to be brought out by the discussions of 
this congress. I only seek to show the ends at which it aims. I only 
seek to invoke for it the sympathy and support of the public in its 
efforts to combine and organize the forces of those who, in different parts 
of our country, are working in this field of philanthropic and patriotic 
labor. 

Crime has its origin in the passions which live in every breast and in 
the weaknesses which mark every character. In its nature it concerns 
each of us as clearly as the common liability to fall prematurely before 
disease and death. No man can know human nature, no man can be 
a great teacher to his fellow-men, no man can frame laws wisely and 
well, who has not studied character in convict life. There he can best 
see the lights and shadows of our nature; see in strongest contrasts 
what is good and what is bad. 

The prisons, to which all vice tends, are the points from which the 
reforms can best be urged which seek to find out where vice begins. 
Starting from the sad ends of crime, and running back along their 
tracks, it is seen that in a large degree they are engendered by public 
tastes, habits, and demoralizations. It is in our prisons that we can 
best learn the corrupting influences about us which lead the weak as 
well as the wicked astray; ay, and sometimes make the strong man 
fall into disgrace and misery. 

In these moral hospitals the thoughtful man, the philanthropist, and 
the statesman will look for the causes of social danger and demoraliza¬ 
tion. When we begin at the prison and work up, we find opening before 
ns all the sources of crime; all the problems of social order and disorder; 
all the great questions with which statesmanship, in dealing with the 


mr. jones’s address of welcome. 313 

interests and welfare of a people, must cope when it seeks to lift up liigli 
standards of virtue and patriotism. 

In tlie most highly civilized countries, the subjects of pauperism and 
crime secure the most attention and thought. They turn men’s minds 
from selfish to unselfish fields of labor. Those who enter those fields 
will find in them marks of toil and care by the best human intellects. 
The grandest minds have worked at their intricate problems. The 
ambition of the first Napoleon sought to gain immortality in his code 
of laws as well as in victories on the field of battle. 

Much has been done, in many of our States, to improve prison disci¬ 
pline. Something has been done toward reforming prisoners; but the 
larger view of the subject, which looks to the moral health of society 
and the baleful influences at work in its organization, has not received 
the attention which it deserves. 

When prisons are visited by men of mind, when prisoners are looked 
upon with kindly eyes by those who can study their characters and 
learn from them the virtues, the vices, and the wickedness which mark 
our race, and who, tracing back the courses of their lives, shall find 
the secret sources of their errors and their crimes, then we shall have 
not only our laws justly enforced and reform wrong-doers; but, more 
and better than these, we shall gain a public virtue and intelligence 
which will secure the safety and happiness of our homes, the glory 
and stability of the republic. Then wealth gained by unworthy means 
will no longer be respected. 

No one can recall the events of the past few years, particularly those 
of the great commercial centers, without feeling that there is an ebb¬ 
tide in American morals. Not a little of the glitter of our social and 
business life is the shining of putrescence. Fungous men have shot up 
into financial prominence, to whom a pervading, deadening moral 
malaria is the very breath of life. They could not exist without this, 
any more than certain poisonous plants can flourish without decaying 
vegetation. 

While I have tried to present in clear terms the claims of this asso¬ 
ciation upon the public sympathy and support, it must be understood 
that we claim for it only the merit of being a useful auxiliary to moral 
and religious teachings. If those who take part in its work should fall 
short of its broader, higher objects of a national character, they will at 
least get this great gain—they will learn to think more humbly of them¬ 
selves, more kindly of their fellow-men, and to see more clearly the 
beauties of Christian charity. 

MR. JONES’S ADDRESS. 

The Hon. Isaac D. Jones, late attorney-general of Maryland, welcomed 
the members of the congress in the following remarks: 

Mr. President, Members of the National Prison Association, 

AND ALL WHO HAVE ASSEMBLED IN THIS CITY TO ATTEND THE PRISON 

Reform Congress : On behalf of the Prisoners’ Aid Association of 
Maryland, and of all our citizens, I have been requested to extend to 
you the right hand of fellowship ; to offer you, in their name, a cordial 
reception, and to bid you a most hearty Maryland welcome. This pleas¬ 
ant duty had been assigned, as was most fit, to our distinguished and elo¬ 
quent fellow-citizen, his excellency the governor of Maryland. I am sure 
all will unite with me in regret that the condition of his health has de¬ 
prived us of the honor of his presence, and him of the pleasure of meeting 
you on this occasion, as I am sure he would have done, with a most cor- 


314 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


dial greeting. You need no assurance from me of his sympathy or of 
liis readiness to render all the aid in his power in accomplishing the 
good work in which you are engaged. It is indeed a good work ; a great 
and important work ; a noble charity and Christian duty. The congress 
of representatives of many of the most important nations of the earth, 
which met in London in July last, indicated the deep interest which has 
been aroused throughout the civilized world in the success of this work. 
It involves one of the most difficult and yet vital problems connected 
with the administration of civil government. It grows in importance 
and extent the more you contemplate it. Beginning with those now in 
prison under condemnation and sentence, and considering what can be 
done toward impressing them with a proper sense of their crime, and 
the dut3 T of repentance and reformation, and how, if possible, they may 
be restored to useful, honest citizenship ; then looking into the criminal 
code, and poudering its provisions and its administration in our courts 
and by our juries, and remedying, as far as possible, such defects in 
both as may be discovered, a far more extensive field is opened to the 
inquiry, what can and must be done to resist the swelling tide of crime, 
and to prevent its sweeping away the barriers which protect not only 
property, but the security of our homes, the quiet, peace, and safety of 
social life, and even life itself, and to induce all classes of our people to 
lead honest, industrious, sober, and useful lives f It is too plain to ob¬ 
servation and experience for any doubt, that the principal sources of 
this destructive Hood of vice and misery are ignorance and idleness. 
What shall be the remedy for these I Where and with whom shall we 
begin with the best prospect of success ? Undoubtedly with those who 
are young and as yet uncontaminated. And as to these, haye all the 
experience of the ages and the boasted discoveries of modern science 
found out anything better than the good old proverb, “Train up a child 
in the way he should go P 

And then comes the question, How and by whom shall he be trained ! 
What are the duties of parental training; what the duty of the State 
in providing the most efficient system of education ? And, most import¬ 
ant of all, upon what foundation shall the superstructure of education 
be erected ? I beg pardon for having, I fear, already gone beyond the 
limits assigned me. But as my heart is deeply impressed with the solemn 
importance of the subjects, at which I have merely hinted, I beg most 
respectfully, in this presence—where so many of the men of thought, 
men deservedly high in the public confidence, and in the councils of our 
country, are assembled—to declare my most solemn and profound convic¬ 
tion that any system of education which does not include the recog¬ 
nition of the existence and attributes of the God of the Bible, and of 
man’s moral responsibility as an immortal being, will utterly fail to “ train 
up a child in the way he should go;” will utterly fail to impress the 
youthful mind with that reverence for truth, purity, justice, and right, 
and for the laws of God and of his country, which shall render him a 
good, law-abiding citizen. 

And now, Mr. President, renewing the assurance of a most cordial 
welcome, permit me to express the hope that your stay with us may be 
pleasant, and that the deliberations of the prison congress may lead to 
the best results. 


MR. KERR’S ADDRESS. 

The Hon. Mr. Kerr, M. 0., of Indiana, in responding to the welcoming 
address of Mr. Jones, said: 

Mr. President : When the executive of Indiana commissioned me as 


MR. KERR’S ADDRESS. 


315 


a delegate to this body, lie invited me to duties which I consider most 
honorable and important. My only regret is, that the exacting duties 
of service in another Congress compel me to decline their performance, 
beyond attendance upon this opening meeting. 

The interest and safety of society demand, primarily, that crime shall 
be restrained and punished. There is no element in criminal adminis¬ 
tration that contributes so effectively to hold in check the criminally 
disposed as the certainty of punishment. Nothing tempts the wicked 
more strongly to the perpetration of crime than the hope of escape with 
impunity, it is, therefore, the obvious duty of every citizen to aid in 
whatever way he has opportunity to maintain and increase the certainty 
of the faithful execution of the law’s judgments. Even an imperfect 
criminal law thus enforced will prove more salutary in its influence 
upon society than a good and wise law loosely, haltingly, or fitfully 
executed. I believe the experience of all countries and governments 
verifies these propositions. It results as our duty, that, in all our efforts 
to promote reforms in connection with the administration of criminal 
law, we should studiously avoid any policy that would tend to defeat 
the operation of these essential principles. 

But while certainty of execution is essential to the success of criminal 
law and the protection of society, it is equally important that the just 
and impartial judgments of the law shall be executed upon the offender 
in the spirit of rational sympathy and mercy. The aim of all laws 
should be to punish and improve. Society has no right to enforce its 
punitive decrees with cruelty or torture. Such agencies do not tend to 
reform, but to humiliate, to enrage, to crush, to brutalize. If punish¬ 
ment alone be the object of the law, it cannot be best attained by such 
means. If you would sharpen the edge or intensify the sting of public 
punishment, you must cultivate the sensibilities, the conscience, the 
moral perceptions of your victim. The brutal man cannot suffer in any 
beneficial or reformative sense. The state whose punitive policy tends 
to brutalize its offenders becomes itself an enemy of society in an im¬ 
portant sense. In truth, civilized and Christian society should never 
cease to remember that, a, tis excellent to have a giant’s strength, but 
tyrannous to use it like a giant.” A brutalized convict, set free, is a worse 
man than before, aud more disposed than ever to prey upon society; but if 
the offender be treated, during imprisonment, as a moral and rational 
creature, capable of being made better, a very different and much better 
result will follow. The temporary loss of personal liberty is exacted of 
the wrong-doer for the safety of society; but imprisonment cannot con¬ 
tinue always. Therefore, even intelligent selfishness, as well as humanity, 
demands that, during confinement, the offender, if possible, be made a 
better man. In almost all cases this can be done. 

The inherent enormity of crime ought never to be denied or palliated 
to the criminal, or reduced in the popular estimation, but rather magni¬ 
fied, as of necessity it will be just in proportion to the increased enlight¬ 
enment of the individual and of the popular judgment and conscience. 
Yet it becomes legislators and prison officers to bear always in mind, 
that, in the evil antecedents and surroundings of birth, in the law of 
hereditary descent, in the misguiding influences of evil associations, of 
ignorance, of abject poverty, and of social neglect and ostracism, there 
are to be found many suggestions that should excite an earnest sympa¬ 
thy and a merciful forbearance. In subordination to the safety and 
purity of society the offender should have the full benefit of these sug¬ 
gestions. They appeal in his behalf to the best impulses of enlight¬ 
ened and just men. It is not improper or injurious in any way, nor 


31 6 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


does it savor of undue sentimentalism to award to the criminal, in his 
prison treatment, the advantages which result from these considerations. 

They forbid any sytem of treatment which does violence to obvious 
laws of health, or of healthful action of mind or body, within prison 
limits, or to the admitted laws of human improvement. A man dis¬ 
eased, or a man filled with dogged anger, or made morbid by solitary 
confinement, or wounded in his self-esteem by harsh or brutal treatment, 
is in a poor frame of mind to receive kindly, or to be impressed by, any 
formal instructions or admonitions. Indeed, under such circumstances, 
it is safe and logical to assume that all efforts for moral improvement 
of the convict are simply wasted. The great law of kindness, of humane 
interest and intelligent sympathy, can alone temper authority with in¬ 
struction in such manner as to guarantee the best results. This is the 
constant experience of intelligent beings in all the relations of daily 
life. Why, then, shall not these benign principles be admitted within 
the prison walls ? If improvement is to be the result of punishment, they 
may not, must not be excluded. If, indeed, the object of society is to 
transform our penitentiaries into moral pest-houses, and to add fuel to the 
base passions of their inmates, then eliminate these God-like and mer¬ 
ciful principles, and leave cold, harsh, untempered, naked authority to 
rule and ruin. But it is not thus that the wise and good should desire, or 
can afford, to govern the bad. The primary object of all punitive dis¬ 
cipline, after confinement at healthful, useful, and regular labor, should 
be the reformation of the criminal. This is required by the highest in¬ 
terests of society, by the dictates of the truest civilization, by the best 
teachings of religion, and by the unconscious appeals of the poor, igno¬ 
rant, or stolidly wicked violators of law. The silent supplication of 
sinful and fallen humanity to its rulers is for light and strength, for 
education of the head and heart, for the cultivation of latent virtue, 
for the revival of neglected and abused manhood, and for the restora¬ 
tion of self-respect, to the end that, when the State shall bid the convict 
resume his personal liberty, he may also possess the morality, courage, 
and intelligence necessary for self-government. The intrinsic excellence 
of a system which secures these results in any substantial degree is 
above all comparison with any system of mere authority. It may be 
said that these results are not attainable in all cases. I admit it; but 
even the most desperate offenders are not insensible to the influences of 
kindness, justice, and good example. These elements, whenever illus¬ 
trated in prison government by the officers, will surely command the 
respect of the inmates, however bad they may be, and will therefore 
certainly exercise a more reformatory influence than the policy of force, 
or fear, or the lash. I would not have these principles carried out in 
prison government from any mere maudlin or humanitarian sentiment 
of sympathy with criminals, the enemies of society and law, but rather 
out of a desire to promote the highest aims and noblest objects of both 
society and law. By such treatment of the bad I would increase the 
essential welfare and security of the good. Then sucli discipline of the 
wicked would react upon their associates in society, and become an 
additional aid in the prevention of crime. 

Do you ask me what our country now most needs to give impetus and 
power to true and permanent penitentiary reform u ? i answer that, in 
my judgment, it is the organization of our prison governments in the 
persons of honest, practical, well-poised, cultivated, humane, and earnest 
men ; not mere doctrinaires or dreamers, not devotees of peculiar systems 
or special crotchets; but practical men, men of affairs, of courage, of 
education, of a high grade of manhood, and of generous impulses as well as 


MR. HAGEMAN’S REMARKS. 


317 


incorruptible integrity. Here, then, is a new field and a good one, 
much neglected heretofore, for useful and beneficent civil service reform. 
I hope you will, with emphasis, call the attention of our law makers and 
appointing powers throughout the States to its importance, aud invoke 
their intelligent aid in its accomplishment. Bad or corrupt men, placed 
in control of convicts, speedily become worse themselves, and are quite 
powerless to improve others. The relation affords a severe test of char¬ 
acter even iu the best. Good and true and brave men alone should be 
given such a command. The influence of strong will, just character, 
and high moral tone in officers, is at once apparent upon the offenders. 
The latter are seldom so base as not to appreciate and respect such offi¬ 
cers, aud be beneficially influenced by their supervision, example, and 
instruction. The importance of having such officers cannot be over¬ 
estimated. 

Prison discipline, to be most effective and fruitful of good, should 
always have a discriminating relation to the antecedents, the personal 
qualities, the mental capacity, and the moral development of the indi¬ 
vidual offenders. Otherwise there will be little ground for hope of true 
and lasting reform. Therefore the law should require prison officers to 
be supplied with faithful reports of whatever is known touching the 
careers of convicts. Then officers will be enabled to make more judi¬ 
cious classifications, to apply discipline and instruction with intelligent 
reference to individual needs and conditions, and to protect prisoners 
from the evil results of unsuitable or improper associations. How in¬ 
dispensable it is for the attainment of all these good and worthy aims, 
that oil prison officers be absolutely trustworthy and suitable men. If 
they are not, no amount of wisdom in the law makers, or in the mere 
letter of the statute, can accomplish the desired results. If they are, 
they will not fail to accomplish very great good even under imperfect 
and vicious laws, for they will be wiser and better than the statute, and, 
without violating it, they will obey the better impulses and requirements 
of enlightened humanity. The friends of prison reform may, therefore, 
do great good by earnest agitation in favor of the appointment of better 
and more suitable men for prison rulers. 

It is most ungenerous trifling with the best interests of society and of 
unfortunate human beings to select prison officers from political or par¬ 
tisan motives. Personal fitness and qualifications alone should be the 
test. Party politics have no business in penitentiaries any more than 
in Sabbath schools or insane asylums. They are bad enough in Con¬ 
gress. I don’t mean this congress, but that more pretentious institution 
over at Washington. If you would establish a new claim, therefore, 
upon the public gratitude, see to it that politics be kept out of prison 
government. The higher motives and precepts of unselfish philan¬ 
thropy and Christian charity should preside in such institutions. 

MR. HAGEMAN’S REMARKS. 

The president called on Mr. John F. Hageman, of New Jersey, for 
remarks, who said that he did not know why he had been thus distin¬ 
guished, unless it was that he came from New Jersey, a State which ex¬ 
ecutes her laws, and where there is no connivance between courts and 
juries, and where juries do not hesitate to convict when the facts warrant 
such a verdict. Yet, for all that, New Jersey believed in prison reform 
and a reformatory prison discipline, and was in full sympathy with the 
objects and work of this congress, and of the National Prison Associa¬ 
tion, at whose call it had been convened. He said that religious in- 


318 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF J873. 


struction and church services were employed with the best results in 
the prisons of his State. Industrial labor was also found a highly re¬ 
formative agency. He might be wrong, but he did not approve ot the 
system of unbroken silence observed, theoretically at least, in most of 
the prisons. Talking did men a great deal of good. Outside workers, 
Christian men and women of judgment and piety, must be admitted, 
under proper restrictions, into our prisons; secular schools and Sunday- 
schools should be established in them. Our reformatory agencies must 
be enlarged and made more comprehensive. 

APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEES. 

The following standing committees were then, on motion, appointed 
by the chair: 

Committee on Permanent Organization. —Hon. P. T. Miller, of Missouri; 
Rev. T. K. Fessenden, of Connecticut; J. Merrefield, of Maryland; Col¬ 
onel Burr, of Ohio; J. M. Talcott, of Bhode Island; Dr. Wright, of 
Tennessee; and Mr. Powell, of New York. 

Business Committee. —Hon. C. I. Walker, of Michigan; Dr. WTnes, of 
New York; Eev. A. Woodbury, of Ehode Island; Dr. E. W. Hatch, of 
Connecticut; G. S. Griffith, of Maryland; Samuel Allinson, of New 
Jersey; and H. Thane Miller, of Ohio. 

Committee on FinancL —Murray Shipley, of Ohio; Hon. Edward Earle, 
of Massachusetts; John E. Develin, esq., of New York; W. E. Lin¬ 
coln, of Maryland; Hon. G. W. Hall, of Pennsylvania; Hon. Frederick 
Smyth, of New Hampshire; and Hon. Cyrus Mendenhall, of Kentucky 

Committee on Credentials. —Win. A. Wisong and J. H. Brown, of Mary¬ 
land; and Eev. J. L. Milligan, of Pennsylvania. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS. 

The Committee on Permanent Organizations subsequently reported, 
and the congress was organized with the following officers: 

President. —Hon. Horatio Seymour, New York. 

Vice-Presidents. —Dr. E. W. Hatch, Connecticut; Charles E. Felton, 
Illinois; Hon. M. C. Kerr, Indiana; S. H. Craig, Iowa; Hon. K. F. Pritch¬ 
ard, Kentucky; G. S. Griffith, Maryland; Hon. Edward Earle, Massa¬ 
chusetts; Hon. C. I. Walker, Michigan; Professor W. F. Phelps, Min¬ 
nesota; General B. B. Eggleston, Mississippi; General James L. Miner, 
Missouri; Hon. Frederick Smyth, New Hampshire; John F. Hageman, 
esq., New Jersey; H. W. Bellows, D. D., New York ; Colonel Raymond 
Burr, Ohio; Hon. Richard Vaux, Pennsylvania; General N. Viall, 
Rhode Island; General C. J. Stolbrand, South Carolina; Dr. W. M. 
Wright, Tennessee; S. J. Baird, D. D., Virginia; Hon. Thomas Swee¬ 
ney, West Virginia ; Hon. Alexander Mitchell, Wisconsin; F. W. Howe, 
District of Columbia; A. P. Eockwood, Utah. 

Secretaries. —H. A. Monfort, Ohio; Dr. J. C. Carpenter, District of Col¬ 
umbia; Eev. William Quinn, New York. 

Treasurer. —Murray Shipley, Ohio. 

Official Reporter. —-Eev. Wm. H. Tiffany, New York. 

ROLL OF MEMBERS. 

The Committee on Credentials subsequently reported the following 
roll of members: 

Alabama. —Not represented. 

Arkansas. —Not represented. 


ORGANIZATION-ROLL OF MEMBERS. 


319 


California.— Not represented. 

Connecticut. —Dr. E. W. Hatch, superintendent State reform school, 
West Meriden ; David P. Nichols, president of board of trustees State 
reform school, Danbury ; George Langdon, trustee State reform school, 
Plymouth; Hiram Foster, secretary of board of trustees State reform 
school, West Meriden ; Itev. Geo. W. Wooding, chaplain of state prison, 
Wethersfield; Rev. I. H. Bradford, superintendent of girls’ industrial 
reform school, Middletown ; H. D. Smith, trustee of girls’ industrial re¬ 
form school, Plantsville; Rev. Thos. K. Fessenden, (executive appoint¬ 
ment,) Farmington; Hon. Henry Barnard, Hartford. 

Delaware. —Not represeuted. 

Florida. —Not represented. 

Georgia. —Not represented. 

Illinois. —Charles E. Felton, superintendent of house of correction, 
Chicago. 

Indiana. —Hon. Michael C. Kerr, M. 0., New Albany. 

Iowa.—S. H. Craig, warden of state prison, Fort Madison. 

Kansas.—N ot represented. 

Kentucky. —Hon. K. F. Pritchard, (executive appointment,) Cattles- 
burg; Dr. J. F. South, (executive appointment,) Bowling Green; Hon. 
J. T. Gray, (executive appointment,) Louisville; Cyrus Mendenhall, 
Newport; Hon. R. K. White, manager of house of refuge, Louisville. 

Louisiana. —Not represeuted. 

Maine. —Not represented. 

Massachusetts. —Rev. Marcus Ames, superintendent of industrial 
school for girls, Lancaster; Hon. Edward L. Pierce, secretary of board 
of State charities, Boston ; Hon. Edward Earle, member board of State 
charities, Worcester; Hon. Benj. Evans, superintendent State reform 
school, Wes thorough. 

Maryland. —G. S. Griffith, president prisoners’ aid society, Balti¬ 
more ; Rev. Penford Doll, agent prisoners’ aid society, Baltimore; 
Professor T. D. Baird, Samuel Townsend, Richard Janney, Chas. W. 
Slagle, J. Harman Brown, Wm. A. Wisong, Ira G Canfield, Jos. Merre- 
field, members prisoners’ aid society, Baltimore; Thos. S. Wilkinson, 
warden of penitentiary, Baltimore; Henry Seim, director of peniten¬ 
tiary board, Baltimore; R. V. Page, clerk of penitentiary board, Bal¬ 
timore; J. H. Irvin, warden of city jail, Baltimore; A. W. Duke, visi¬ 
tor of city jail, Baltimore; W. R. Lincoln, superintendent of house of 
refuge, Baltimore; L. A. Byerly, director of house of refuge, Balti¬ 
more; J. S. Lincoln, superintendent of boys’ home, Baltimore; Wil¬ 
liam Palmer, agent of the Henry Watson children’s aid society, Balti¬ 
more; Mrs. Penfield Doll, assistant agent of prisoners’ aid society, 
Baltimore. 

Mississippi. —General B. B. Eggleston. 

Missouri. —General Jas. L. Miner, (executive appointment,) Jefferson 
City; Hon. P. T. Miller, (executive appointment,) Jefferson City; Miss 
Linda Gilbert, Saint Louis; Mrs. A. W. Richardson, Saint Louis. 

Michigan. —Hon. C. I. Walker, chairman board commissioners penal 
and charitable institutions, Detroit; Rev. Chas. Johnson, superinten¬ 
dent of reform school, Lansing; Hon. J. I. Mead, member of board of 
reform school, Lansing. 

Minnesota. —Professor Wm. F. Phelps, president State normal school, 
Winona; Hon. E. G. Butts, inspector State prison, Stillwater; H. A. 
Jackman, warden State prison, Stillwater; Mrs. S. B. Jackman, Still¬ 
water. 

Nebraska. —Not represented. 

Nevada. —Not represented. 


320 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1S73. 


New Hampshire. —Hon. F. Smyth, ex-governor and president pris¬ 
oners’ aid association, Manchester ; Allen Folger, member prisoners’ 
aid association, Concord. 

New Jersey. —Johu F. Hageman, esq., district attorney, Princeton 5 
L. H. Shelden, superintendent State reform school, Jamesburg; Mrs. L. 
E. Dodge, matron of girls’ industrial school, Trenton 5 Samuel Allinson, 
member of board of State reform and girls’industrial schools, Yardville. 

North Carolina.—N ot represented. 

New York. —Rev. Dr. H. W. Bellows, vice-president national prison 
association, New York; Rev. Dr. Wines, secretary national prison asso¬ 
ciation, New York; Mrs. Wines; Rev. W. H. Tiffany, official reporter, 
Stony Creek; Aaron M. Powell, national temperance society and pub¬ 
lication house, New York; Hon. John E. Develin, member board man¬ 
agers of Catholic protectory, New York ; Rev. William Quinn, advisory 
chaplain of Catholic protectory, New York; Brother Teliow, rector of 
Catholic protectory, New York; George B. Cline, Roselyn. 

Ohio. —Col. Raymond Burr, warden of penitentiary, Columbus ; H. 
S. Monfort, superintendent of house of refuge, Cincinnati; H. Thane 
Miller, esq., director of house of refuge, Cincinnati; Murray Shipley, 
director of house of refuge, Cincinnati. 

Oregon. —Not represented. 

Pennsylvania. —Hon. Richard Vaux, president of board of inspec¬ 
tors, eastern penitentiary, Philadelphia; George W. Hall, member of 
Philadelphia prison society, Philadelphia ; Edward H. Coates, member 
of Philadelphia prison society, Philadelphia; Thomas, A. Robinson, 
Philadelphia Magdalen society, Philadelphia; Dr. Joseph Parrish, 
president of association for the cure of inebriates, Media; T. J. Big- 
ham, president of reform school board, Pittsburgh; Rev. J. L. Milligan, 
chaplain of western penitentiary, Allegheny ; George Albree, director of 
Allegheny County workhouse, Pittsburgh; J. D. Carlisle, Allegheny 
County prison society, Pittsburgh ; Rev. W. A. Fuller, chaplain of Al¬ 
legheny County workhouse, Claremont; J. P. Fleming, director Alle¬ 
gheny County workhouse, Pittsburgh ; George R. White, director Alle¬ 
gheny County workhouse, Pittsburgh. 

Rhode Island. —General N. Viall, warden of state prison, Provi¬ 
dence; Rev. Augustus Woodbury, president board of state prison in¬ 
spectors, Providence; James M. Talcott, superintendent of reform 
school, Providence. 

South Carolina.— General C. J. Stolbrand, warden of State prison, 
(executive appointment,) Columbia. 

Tennessee.— Dr. W. M. Wright, inspector of state prison and 
branches, Nashville. 

Texas. —Not represented. 

Vermont.— Not represented. 

Virginia. —Rev. Dr. S. J. Baird, Waynesborough. 

West Virginia. —Hon. Thomas Sweeney, Wheeling; Thomas P. 
Shallcross, warden of state prison, Moundsville. 

Wisconsin.— Not represented. 

TERRITORIES. 

District of Columbia.—F. W. Howe, superintendent reform school, 
Washington; Dr. J. E. Carpenter, trustee of reform school, Washing¬ 
ton. 

Utah. —A. P. Rockwood, warden of penitentiary, Salt Lake City. 
foreign countries. 

Finland. —Dr. Felix Heckle, Helingsfors. 


ANNUAL REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 


321 


II.—ANNUAL REPORTS OF SECRETARY AND STANDING COM¬ 
MITTEES OF THE NATIONAL PRISON ASSOCIATION. 

1. Report of the secretary. 

The undersigned respectfully offers for his second annual report as 
Secretary of the National Prison Association, the report which he had the 
honor to submit to the President of the United States as commissioner 
of the Government to the International Penitentiary Congress of Lon¬ 
don, and which is printed in the preceding part of the present volume. 

E. C. WINES, 
Secretary . 


2. Report of the executive committee. 

The aim of the executive committee iu the present report is to set be¬ 
fore the national prison association and the people of the United States 
certain views relating to prison management, whose prevalence in 
society they deem of the highest importance—views which must take 
hold of the general public before any practical application of them 
will be allowed in our prison administration. These principles are doubt¬ 
less familiar to the delegates to this congress, but not too familiar, and 
certainly not too operative even with them ; and we know they will ex¬ 
cuse some reiteration of commonplaces, for the sake of the end in 
view, which is the unfolding of those principles of human nature, in the 
light of which prison science can alone safely and steadily advance. 
We offer, then, nothing local, circumstantial, or historical; nothing 
specifically American ; and nothing directly connected with the work of 
the past year, but only an unfolding of certain ideas and principles 
deemed vital to our cause. 

Some twenty years ago Captain Alexander Maconochie, an English 
naval officer, and a man of exceptional insight into the laws of human 
nature, with a transcendent desire to aid its worst specimens to conquer 
their vices and weaknesses, conceived and carried out a scheme for the 
reform of prisoners and convicts, in the penal colony at Norfolk Island, 
Australia, and subsequently of the juvenile prisoners in Birmingham 
jail, England, which, although well known among students of prison 
discipline, is just beginning to attract the attention of the general pub¬ 
lic. Sir Walter Crofton adopted and improved upon Maconochie’s sug¬ 
gestions, and inaugurated a similar system in Ireland, where it has 
become the admiration, example, and chief hope of all practical stu¬ 
dents of the new social science of prison discipline. 

There was published, in the annual report of the association for 1871, 
a resume of the principles of Macouochie’s system, made by Dr. Wines, 
the learned, devoted, and persistent leader of American reformers in 
prison discipline. This admirable essay contains more to instruct and 
encourage the friends of criminals, and the hopes for an improved 
human society, than anything elsewhere to be found, excepting the 
original papers which furnished the ground-work of it. Before stating 
what those principles are, when traced to the root from which they 
spring, we wish to draw attention to a less usual view of the importance 
of the study of prison discipline, as a general study of human nature, 
reflecting immense light, not easily obtained by any other process, upon 
the whole science of education, domestic discipline, training for life, 
and even the administration of religion. Students in medicine know 
the vast importance of the opportunities afforded by public hospitals 
H. Ex. 185-21 


322 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


for the study of the laws of health, and the conditions of cure in general 
practice. Morbid anatomy, too, throws valuable light upon the organs 
and functions of health. Insane asylums have become schools of study 
for psychologists; and the laws of reason and the discipline of intelli¬ 
gence and will are better understood by the careful study of abnormal 
fancies and deranged minds. In like manner, a profound consideration 
of the dispositions and tendencies that lead to crime, made in reforma¬ 
tories and prisons, reveals the errors of our domestic training, exhibits 
the prevalent faults of our school discipline, and throws a clear light on 
the defects of our social system. A study of the crude character, Iqw 
tendencies, paralysis of will, morbid imagination, stupefied conscience, 
and gross sensuality of the criminal class, brought under prison restraint, 
opens a profound view into the working of our whole social system, 
points to the weak spots in our common nature, exhibits the defects in 
the laws and administration of our system of government, and shows 
how ill-formed is the public opinion that rules communities. 

Without formally arraigning society, or beating the air with com¬ 
plaints that have no definite end, in the attempt to remove difficulties 
connected with the condition of prisoners, principles are developed, 
rights brought out, and facts disclosed, which must inevitably, sooner 
or later, produce wide changes in the whole conception of this subject— 
changes which will prepare for radical reforms in general education, 
family discipline, and the whole life of society. 

We do not propose to state Captain Maconochie’s principles—which 
may now be considered the accepted principles of all competent dealers 
with the subject of prison discipline—in his own words, nor in the 
multiform division into which they fall in Dr. Wines’s essay. We wish 
rather to strike at the root-principle of them all, and then to follow the 
trunk up to its few chief branches. We must keep principles and 
methods distinct, and it is a defect of Captain Maconochie’s mind, and 
perhaps a necessity of Dr. Wines’s purpose, that this is not done by 
either. The principles and the methods are both apparent enough in 
the account. But methods are constantly put in place of principles; 
and, indeed, Dr. Wines’s title is a little misleading, and would be 
amended by calling his essay Maconochie’s method of prison discip¬ 
line. Bor instance, the mark or credit plan, which is his first principle, 
is really only a method founded on a principle. The principle is this, 
that hope is just as essentially and vitally at the root of all true prison 
discipline as at the root of all free human life. Extinguish hope in 
human society or in asingle human bosom, and you strike a death¬ 
blow at the will, the conscience, and the understanding. Nothing so 
fatal in the action of government or in the political, social, economic 
conditions of a people, as the depression or extinction of hope. Gov¬ 
ernments and social organizations may be measured and graded, as 
regards their merits, by the degree in which hope exists among the 
people at large. It is the quality which exerts the largest, most con¬ 
stant, most stimulating and sustaining influence upon the one universal 
humanity. What light and heat are to the vegetable world, and what 
the opportunity is to plants to rise freely in the wooing air, hope is to 
human affections, faculties, and will. It is the absence of hope, indeed, 
which, more largely than anything else, makes criminals; for the im¬ 
mense obstacles which oppressive or unequal social and political insti¬ 
tutions create to the following of honest paths of remunerative industry, 
drive the irresolute, the self-indulgent, and the less moral to what they 
mistake for the more open and immediately promising career of crime. 

It being established that the old principle adopted from the entrance 


ANNUAL REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 


323 


to Dante’s Inferno, u Let all who enter here abandon hope,” which for 
ages had stood over the gate of the prison, is contrary to every law of 
human progress and elevation, Captain Maconochie, in effect, put in its 
place, ‘‘And now abideth hope” for prisoners and convicts, as well as 
for all God’s creatures. This is really his fundamental principle, and it 
is worthy of its place at the root of his glorious scheme. 

But in adopting this principle, of course the old idea of vindictive 
or even exemplary punishment, as the first end of penal law and prac¬ 
tice. is at once torn from its supremacy. Of course, also, the immediate 
safety of free society being the sole object of criminal law, jails and 
prisons were originally built to disarm dangerous members of society of 
the power to harm it. Safely lodged there, they were to be punished 
vindictively for the injuries they had caused: first, because they deserved 
it, and justice was supposed to be thus promoted ; and, second, to warn 
and deter others from following their example. It was at last discov¬ 
ered—and strange it is that it took so long to find it out—that the main 
object sought, the safety of free society, was not effectually secured by 
this method; that its cruelty and selfishness aroused a bitter hatred 
between the class most exposed to become criminals and society itself; 
that it made laws, and courts, and police merely objects of disgust and 
terror; took away the whole sense of anything friendly, protective, and in 
the interest of the exposed classes from the aspect of organized society 
and government, and really tended to create the criminals it punished. It 
was the crime-creating power of the gallows and of the vindictive punish¬ 
ments of jails and prisons, the dangers involved for society, and the litte 
deterring power which fear was discovered to have over brutal natures, 
that first drew attention to the fact that, if only the interests of society 
were to be considered, the reformation of the convict must be placed first 
and made the ground-idea in his peual treatment. It was not a mawkish 
concern for him, nor chiefly a feeling of moral obligation to reform him, 
that first opened the way to the new principle, but a broader view of 
what the safety of society itself required. The safety of society de¬ 
manded that law and justice should not present to the people of any 
country, as their first impression, that of a power inimical to, or distinct 
from, or merely restrictive of, their freedom. It should wear distinct¬ 
ively the aspect of a friend, well-wisher, helper. It should appear as 
much the protector, ally, inspirer and encourager of their industry, 
order, virtue, and happiness, as the restrainer of their violence and vice. 
“For their good always,” should be its characteristic expression. Thus 
laws, police, courts, prisons, punishments, legislators, parliaments, 
presidents, and kings become the recognized friends and helpers of the 
people—sources of hope and refuge in trouble. 

In this new state of things the criminal classes, offending against 
only just and mild restraints and laws universally conceded to be neces¬ 
sary and for the good of all, rapidly lose the sympathy of those nearest 
to them in condition and prospects. Then criminals cease to be heroes 
and martyrs; society ceases to be regarded as a tyrant, and penal law 
and police to be objects of the hatred and evasion of all the lower half 
of the social system. The necessity of reforming the convict for the 
safety of society having been adopted as a first principle of prison dis¬ 
cipline, it soon became plain that lie could not be reformed except he 
icere reformed for his own sake also. In short, it became apparent that 
his own consent must be obtained, if not to his imprisonment, at least to 
his reformation, and that this could only be effected by carrying out 
toward men in prison precisely the principles adopted in keeping men out 
of prison. If the friendliness of the law be the principle which makes 


324 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


free men most observant of laws and least disposed to break them, and 
so tends to diminish the criminal class, by what other principle shall 
those already become criminals and convicts be cured of criminal pro¬ 
pensities and returned to society with the least danger to its safety f 

Accordingly, the reformation of the prisoner being conceded to be 
the best and most necessary service to the public safety, and his refor¬ 
mation being impossible without his own free agency and consent, the 
problem was, how to secure this consent, and, as a consequence, his co¬ 
operation. 

Captain Maconochie cannot have been the first to see that hope is the 
only sufficient motive that can be applied to secure this object; but he 
certainly was the first to feel that absolute confidence in it which was 
necessary to make it the cardinal working principle of a method of 
prison discipline. He said to himself, What is the fundamental princi¬ 
ple that in free society stimulates the human race to order, industry, 
virtue, and piety f It is hope; hope of living; hope of influence and 
power; hope of ease in old age; hope of the esteem and love of those 
about us; hope of forgiveness ; hope of heaven. 

What is the ordinary form which this hope takes in respect of 
all social interests'? It is wages or money, that roughly represents the 
reward, in view of which hope labors. Take away the hope of this re¬ 
ward from industry, character, talents, ingenuity, patience, persistency, 
self-control, and self-denial, and you strike away the crutch from the 
lame, and they fall to the ground. Now, how can hope be made in pris¬ 
ons just as operative a principle within the narrow limits of its sphere, 
as it is in common free life ? Why, only by adopting in spirit the very 
idea of wages. It does not so much matter what these wages are, how 
large, or in what form ; for among people whose very condition of im¬ 
prisonment reduces them to a low plane of expectation, a very small 
inducement, steadily applied and gradually increased, produces as much 
effect as only a very large one does upon people in free life. A crack 
admitting the least light to a dungeon would be as precious to a convict 
as the whole dawn is to a free man. A penny a day to one who can 
otherwise earn nothing would be as influential as a shilling to those who 
find free occupation. 

Set hope at work, and keep it at work, upon ever so low a grade ; 
if it is working steadily and habitually, you have got your principle 
of motion and your fact of motion, and you can now direct the vessel 
because she is under way, w hereas you could do nothing to guide her 
while she stood still. Captain Maconocliie’s method of setting this 
principle universally at work at the least cost to the state and the 
greatest good to the convict, which is also the greatest good of the na¬ 
tion, was to establish for prisoners a system of marks, each of which 
represented a value, say of one penny. The convict, instead of being 
condemned to a certain and fixed number of years of imprisonment, 
was to be condemned to remain in prison until he had earned and had 
put to his credit a certain number of marks —say 1,000,2,000, 5,000, or 
10 ,000, according to his crime; but it is to be noted that only the sur¬ 
plus of marks, after certain material deductions, could go toward his 
liberation. The marks in Captain Maconochie’s system had a money 
value; and the prisoner was first to pay, in that currency, for his food, 
clothing, bed, schooling, &c.; and it was the surplus earned by him that 
alone counted toward his release. This made the prison an image 
of real life, and brought into play, and enlisted on the side of reforma¬ 
tion, all the motives which act on men in free society as stimulants to 
industry, order, and good morals. His system goes still further, and 


ANNUAL REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 


325 


allows the prisoner, if he so elect, to remain after he has become en¬ 
titled to his freedom, and earn marks the same as before. In that case 
the surplus of marks, after the payment above specified, have areal money 
value, and are paid to him in hard cash whenever he takes his depart¬ 
ure from the prison. 

Every one of his prison duties—good conduct, industry in labor, docil¬ 
ity at school—could each day earn for him, let us say, at its maximum, 
three marks for each department, or nine in all. It is easily seen how 
he might lengthen out his imprisonment by disobedience, sloth, and in- 
docility ; how shorten it by good conduct, industry, and aptness at learn¬ 
ing ; and what a steady pressure hope would exercise upon him under 
such a system. But this mark system had other advantages. The dis¬ 
cipline of the prison was arranged, and this is especially the case as ap¬ 
plied in the Crofton system, so as to graduate the severity of the con¬ 
vict’s condition according to his marks. First, for the opportunity of 
tasting the bitterness of his crime and reflecting upon his past folly, he was 
solitarily confined and put on a very low diet, it might be, for six months 
at its maximum and four at its minimum, and there was always before 
him the hope of shortening this fearful solitude and low fare by quie¬ 
tude, by observance of all prison rules, by docility to the chaplain and 
keeper. Then came labor out of his cell, a great relief; but at first 
labor only of the most distasteful or arduous kind, with a slightly im¬ 
proved diet, in which second stage the prisoner by good conduct, indus¬ 
try, and docility, could shorten also his term in this lowest of the im¬ 
proved stages by a few weeks or months, and then be promoted into a 
better class, whose privileges were slightly raised, by less supervision, 
more variety, better food ; and this again, if faithfully used, gave place 
to a still freer prison life, with greater advantages and more attrac¬ 
tions. Thus hope was always beckoning the convict on, supplying him 
with inducements to do his best, and giving him, as nearly as his con¬ 
dition allowed, the motives that stimulate free citizens to toil, decency, 
and self-improvement. 

What branches this main principle divided into and gave support to, 
we shall now consider. 

The admission of the fundamental principle of hope into prison- 
life, on the score of its being the chief inspiration of free or ordinary 
life, instantly suggests that the fundamental fact in dealing with all 
human beings is, that they partake a common human nature, and, 
“ mutatis mutandis ,” that the same essential motives, rules, laws, con¬ 
ditions under which they flourish, in one set of circumstances, are 
applicable to all. The essential conditions of growth, progress, refor¬ 
mation, are not changed by the most diverse circumstances. The 
wildest tribe of Indians falls under the laws of human nature as well 
as the most cultivated nations of the Saxon race; and progress, order, 
safety, industry, self-respect depend in both upon the same principles. 
It is not in essence, but simply in form, that the principles of action are 
changed. A prison is not so unlike the world outside its walls that 
the presence of men and women there do not make it more similar to 
free society in its wants and conditions of usefulness than its restraints 
and isolation make it different from such society. The world, under 
Divine Providence, is, in some sort, a prison ; and the prison is, in some 
sort, a world. There is confinement, restraint, bondage in the free 
world ; and there is freedom, opportunity, variety in the closest prison. 
You cannot free the most fortunate and unrestrained citizen from 
many restrictive rules and circumstances, and you cannot rob the 
chained convict of his freedom of thought and his excursions of 


326 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


feeling and fancy. Indeed, freedom, in proportion to its political 
completeness, lias its moral restrictions and its self-restraints intensified. 
Under the highest civilization, man, in becoming a law to himself, is 
attended by the most vigilant of police officers and the most implacable 
of task masters. There is no prison so impassible as that with which the 
obligations of duty surround the tender conscience, or the laws of rea¬ 
son the active intelligence, or the requirements of the affections the 
largest and most liberal heart. Those who fancy that free society, in 
proportion to its freedom, encourages or admits license, caprice, self- 
will, mistake the nature of the most operative restraints in the human 
soul. In the freest society, education, enlightenment, cultivated sensi¬ 
bility, conscientiousness, aspiration, piety, not only take the place of 
police supervision and criminal law, but they do their work a thousand 
times more rigidly and effectively. 

But taking free society in its present average state, no mistake is 
wilder and more betraying than that which supposes its usual restraints 
and penalties to be light and inoperative. The restraints it imposes, 
the penalties it exacts, the burdens it lays on the backs of its children, 
are infinitely greater, more general, and more constant than statutory 
law can inflict. Burke says: “The laws reach but a very little way. 
Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it 
must depend on the exercise of the powers which are left at large, to the 
prudence and uprightness of ministers of state .’ 7 And we may add all arti¬ 
ficial restraints and contrivances, social or political, fall immeasurably 
short in their efficiency of those natural, self-enforcing penalties, re¬ 
straints, and incitements which come from the very constitution of our 
nature and the world we live in. What motive could take the place of 
hunger, sympathy, paternal instinct, the love of power, the dread of 
pain, the fear of death, the hope of heaven ? What device could 
fulfill the guardian-angelship of natural modesty and divine shame"? 
What restrain like the natural sense of justice, the natural desire for the 
good opinion of others, and the natural dread of consequences ! Our 
constitution, the laws of our physical, intellectual, moral, social nature 
are the tremendous barriers which our Maker has opposed to license and 
disobedience. We are in prison to them—a prison we may break, but 
never without penalty. They set a prison guard about us more vigilant 
and with more fatal weapons than can surround a jail full of murderers. 
The criminal laws of man, few, loose, inapt, bungling, uncertain, easily 
evaded, are directed mainly to the restraint of exceptionally low and vul¬ 
gar natures; to the prevention of the evils that are least common, and 
which furnish no temptation to average humanity. But the laws of 
nature and the self-developing and self-acting laws of human society, are 
absolute in their strength and efficacy. They provoke little opposition 
and no sense of injustice. They are impartial and they are sleepless. 
But in the severity, constancy, and even penal character of those laws, 
we discover how it is God that governs the world. 

If we would improve our laws, our schools, our homes, ourselves, we 
must follow God’s method; leave natural principles undisturbed, fall 
back on the essential motive powers; keep hope always at work, and 
fling every member of society to the utmost extent possible, consistent 
with safety to the rest, upon an enlightened sense of his own interest, 
on the rewards that attend and follow obedience to justice, truth, and 
duty, and the stimulus that proceeds from that hope which perfectly 
equal laws, political and personal freedom, and an encouraging faith 
in God’s goodness and in the benignity of religion, do so much to pro¬ 
mote. 


ANNUAL REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 


327 


The most constant of the laws of Providence, in free society, is the 
necessity of labor; and it is the most benignant and most educational 
and disciplinary of all human necessities. Whatever theory of its origin 
we may adopt, we have no conception of any possible growth of human¬ 
ity separated from the use and working of its faculties, and we have no 
experience of any adequate use of those faculties except under the 
steady spur of necessity. Labor, which alone regulates the restless 
love of liberty, the uncivilizing change of place, the native indolence of 
man in most climates, is provided for by the constant pressure of hun¬ 
ger—a want which is only greater than that of clothing—which is itself 
perhaps the more directly civilizing necessity, as it is less sensual than 
the want of food. All the other wants of society are modifications, 
developments, and refinements of these, shelter being only another sort 
of clothing, and architecture another form of shelter. The sense of 
property and its rights, and the public opinion which guards them 
better than law, are natural outgrowths of the value which labor puts 
upon its own conscious pains. But labor is animated not only by neces¬ 
sity, but by the discovery of its rewards, and the cumulative and ever- 
increasing preciousness of its results, as more of the powers of humanity 
and especially its higher faculties are mingled with it. There is no essen¬ 
tial difference between the pains of thinking and the strain of the muscles; 
between work, whether considered as mental or physical. Both are 
induced and sustained by the same essential stimulus. As human nature 
refines its wants, the motive changes its form, but not its spirit, accord¬ 
ingly. The hunger for luxury may become as eager as that for food; the 
thirst for influence, fame, virtue, excellence, as imperative as that for 
shelter. Man’s nature cannot be developed without its wants becoming 
ever more varied and more urgent, but the principle is always the same. 
What we want, we must labor to get; and it is only by labor that we 
can make even our gratifications satisfying. Thus protectors may 
furnish food, but what but labor in some form can furnish appetite? 
You may supply the indolent with books, but what but his own labori¬ 
ous self cultivation can supply the skill to read, the taste to enjoy, the 
mental discipline to understand them? You may surround a prince 
with statues and pictures, but can anything short of the laborious cul¬ 
tivation of his knowledge and taste give him the power to enjoy them? 
Wealth, inherited, has few of the satisfactions of wealth created. Posi¬ 
tion, born-to, has none of the charms of position won. Plenty bestowed 
has none of the sweetness of plenty earned. It is impossible, in short, 
by any circumstances to overcome the necessity of developing, by labor, 
those feelings, tastes, habits, that condition of the man himself which 
is the other and more important factor in the felicitating result which 
is aimed at. This would be more universally conceded if labor were not 
so commonly regarded purely in its lower, more common, and more ex¬ 
ternal forms. 

But while man, in free society, has a providential necessity for labor, 
which can never be set aside or outwitted without penalties, he has also 
an instinct for freedom, a dread of labor, a desire to change its form, 
to escape its outward signs, and to get above its visible necessities. 
Those who lack this feeling become drudges or drones. Those who 
have it in excess impress the labor of others and become tyrants by 
force of will, genius, or strength. Make labor a double necessity, first 
of hunger and then of artificial compulsion, and you make serfs and 
slaves. Enact unjust laws, or perpetuate by law the injustice, greed, 
and ambition of earlier society—allow the land to pass into few hands— 
continue a feudal state of things—and you degrade the bulk of any na- 


328 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


tion into mere day-laborers, whose aspirations and hopes are limited to 
their daily bread. But just in proportion as political institutions are 
equal and just, 3011 offer to all men under their bland influence the 
highest balance of a general necessity for labor, with the greatest in¬ 
ducement to the cultivation and use of their best faculties, that their 
labor may be refined and rewarded in higher ways, according as their 
powers and aptitudes may allow. But let none think that Providence 
ceases to exact the strictest payments for its gifts in the shape of toil, 
self-control, and the highest and most painful self-culture, from those 
who seem to escape most completely from the ordinary necessities of 
humanity. Genius is a fearful taskmaster. Power is a prodigious 
worker. Elevation is often solitary confinement, and the vaster the 
sway and the mightier the forces controlled, the stiffer the hands that 
hold the reins and the more weary and worn the charioteer. In a word, 
labor as a necessity—now physical, now mental—permanently describes 
human condition in free society; and freedom in the discharge of this 
necessity is merely the change of the necessity from the belly to the 
will. The more free you can make this labor, by taking it off' the back 
and putting it upon the brain—the more you can bring its compulsion 
out of the heart, conscience, taste, intellect, and the less out of the 
stomach—the more do you make it favorable to human dignity and aspi¬ 
ration. Political freedom, free trade, common-school education, reli¬ 
gious bearing, immortal hopes, equal laws, protection of property and 
rights, all aid in, and are measured off* by, this result. Men must work 
with hand, or head, or heart. Get their free consent to this work by 
making them feel its blessedness as a law of Providence, and not merely 
a blunt necessity of fortuitous circumstances, a misfortune of their lot; 
let them see that so they are built up and dignified, and so society is 
exalted, that the God who made them is their friend as well as their 
prison keeper and governor, and that all things in His providence and 
our nature work together for good, if we observe His statutes and laws 
written in that nature and our lot, and you achieve the highest possible 
results of social existence, as well as secure the largest returns of indi¬ 
vidual happiness and excellency. 

It is these principles which the new r science of prison discipline, based 
on Maconocliie’s method, is seeking to apply to the treatment and eleva¬ 
tion of prisoners. Hope being the root of the principle, labor and free¬ 
dom are its two chief branches. The prisoner must be kept at labor, 
because labor is the great burden and necessity of all free life, and its 
chief educating opportunity. Solitary confinement, deprivation of occu¬ 
pation, beyond a very limited period, in the way of punishment, at the 
outset of the convict’s imprisonment, are found wholly lacking in any 
power to renovate and reform. They do afford an opportunity for reflec¬ 
tion, and they humble and break down tlie prisoner’s false pride and 
sense of power to defy the law. But the very feelings thus usefully 
started are paralyzed, if not put to a speedy use: and a dungeon or ceil 
becomes, after a while, a place of sleep, apathy, idle thoughts, or pruri¬ 
ent fancies. Besides, the prisoner who is fed at the public cost, usually 
quite as abundantly or more so than people at liberty in his own social 
class are fed by their labor, often feels that he is compelling society to 
support him, and successfully evading the law that, in the sweat of his 
brow, he shall earn liis bread. Keep him for years in this idleness, and 
he goes out of jail utterly ruined as a laborer, and often speedily returns 
to prison, sometimes by an act purposely committed to secure that end. 
A life of full fed idleness in prison is sweeter to degraded natures than 
a life of ill-paid and ill-fed labor out of it. As soon, therefore, as the 


ANNUAL REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 329 

convict bas passed through his short season of solitary confinement, he 
is put to hard labor, on poor diet; but, with the feeling- that he is now 
earning his own bread, lie returns in part to the ordinary wholesome 
state of free life. But bis labor is soon made less bitter, if it is not 
made sweet, by the announcement that he can slightly improve his fare 
by diligence, co-operation, quiet behavior, and the careful observance of 
all prison rules. A few months of the least attractive form of labor, if 
the prisoner earns the privilege by good conduct, are rewarded by a 
choice of occupations. He is put to the trade for which he has an apti¬ 
tude or preference. Now, again, his diet is bettered. 

By degrees the social nature, which is so important apart of man, and so 
educating and invigorating, is allowed to take its part in his elevation. 
The prisoners are separated into small squads, and permitted to carry 
on their work together, to help each other, and finally even to live to¬ 
gether in buts or cabins, always, of course, under necessary restrictions 
and supervision, but with a steady eye to imitating, as far as possible, 
the workings of free society, accustoming them to social influence and 
to membership one of another. As much room as is compatible with 
security and their safe-keeping is given to their free will. They are con¬ 
tinually encouraged to work from inward motives, from a sense of ben¬ 
efit to themselves, from hope of reward, and from a consciousness that 
both their labor and their indulgences are regulated with an eye to 
their personal reformation and their preparation for future self-support 
in the ways of order and virtue. 

But what has become of punishment under this hopeful system of 
reformation ? Is not the sense of confinement, the necessary associa¬ 
tion with convicts, the brand of the public prison, isolation from 
the world, and the suspension of the freedom to go and come, and 
do and not do, which belong to the innocent, punishment enough ? 
But that is not the true answer; the severity of punishment is in 
no degree to be measured by its external amount or its cruelty of 
form, but by the degree in which it is felt. If you kill sensibility you 
destroy the power of suffering. You may whip a prisoner till he ceases 
to feel the blows. You may extinguish the sense of freedom until the prison 
ceases to be an object of horror or offense. Y"ou may dull the conscience 
until no appeal starts a responsive pang. Y r ou may accustom man 
to hardship until hardship ceases to have any sense of trial connected 
with it. The true method of making punishment effective is to make 
the object of it sensitive to its stroke. You must not toughen either the 
outer cuticle or the true skin of the heart, if you expect your blow upon 
either to tell. A gentleman feels a slight imputation on his honor more 
than a ruffian does a stab. A breath of calumny afflicts an innocent 
and modest woman more than a public trial does a lewd sister. Even 
then, if punishment is to be made dreadful, it is only within the bound¬ 
aries of two principles that it can keep its efficacy. You must not ex¬ 
tinguish or lessen sensibility by the hardening process of frequent, per¬ 
sistent, and cruel penalties. To make a soldier familiar with the lash is 
to destroy its dread. To make a prisoner familiar with solitude, with 
hunger, with stolid neglect, with dull routine, is to destroy or annul 
their penal influence, their deterring power, their chastening or their 
moral influence. 


All punishments the world can render 
Serve only to provoke tlf offender; 

The will gains strength from treatment horrid, 

As hides grow harder when they are curried. 

— Trumbull's McFingal. 


330 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Punishment is not lessened in its power by external mildness, by care¬ 
ful graduation, by considerate and infrequent application. Even suffer¬ 
ing, which it must be recollected is at last a personal feeling, is not mor¬ 
ally diminished by any process which increases sensibility faster than it 
diminishes violence. The probability is that it is the best and most im¬ 
proving prisoners, those w r ho have the most privileges and the nearest 
approach to free life, who feel their sufferings and their punishment most 
acutely. For they still have the love of liberty, the elements of self- 
respect, and the consciousness of power to be good citizens tugging at 
their heart-strings. They have the reproaches of conscience, the mem¬ 
ory of an innocence they have lost, the longing for an opportunity to try 
their good resolutions, all intensified by the shame of their situation. 
Brutal, hardened, self-abandoned men, accustomed to daily severity, 
hopeless, and without interest in themselves or their future, are not 
great sufferers$ they are fast becoming insensible stocks and stones. 

It is a radical error, then, to assume that making more of the reform¬ 
atory aim makes less of the penal. That is really more when put in the 
second place, than it could be if left in the first. Bo you suppose that a 
prisoner of average sensibility feels most a blow, or a word of reproof 
and expostulation, of kindness and sympathy ? Many whom stripes 
cannot touch are deeply moved to suffering by a sympathy new to their 
hearts, which opens the closed flood-gates of remorse. 

The new processes of milder and more reformatory methods are 
not designed to make the prisoner dread the jail less or feel more 
comfortable there, nor do they have that effect. They are designed 
to bring the more sensitive parts of his nature under the influ¬ 
ence of punishment, and to make that punishment elevating and 
reformatory, instead of being merely degrading and brutalizing. You 
may ferule a boy until his hands are too tough to suffer, yet he has sen¬ 
sibility still left somewhere on his skin. You may apply severe punish¬ 
ments only in one way, and with so much routine and narrowness of 
application that they lose all responsiveness from the nature they aim to 
reach. The more of the man you can keep open and exposed, the more 
of thought, feeling, conscience, affection, hope, you bring under your 
penal application, the larger and more effective is your weapon; there¬ 
fore, whatever free-will, whatever freedom of action, whatever educa¬ 
tion, whatever moral influence, whatever affection, whatever else tends 
to increase the area and sensibility of the criminal’s humanity, offer you 
new chances of punishment with new chances of reformation. 

It is with the convict under cruel, or brutal, or persistent penalties 
as it is with society under oppressive and intrusive or vindictive laws. 
To make shop-lifting a hanging offense does not tend to diminish crimes 
of violence. “As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” says the thief; 
one crime is as bad as another. Thus moral distinctions are blurred, 
the wisdom and justice of society are arraigned, and the lower portion 
of the world becomes insensible to the moral considerations most potent 
over the beginnings of vice and crime. If you make vexatious and in¬ 
trusive tariff laws, and affix unreasonable duties, you harden the 
mercantile conscience, and convert even the better class of women into 
petty smugglers. Few laws, mild law T s, impartial laws make sensitive 
citizens, enlist the good will of the public, favor their own certain en¬ 
forcement, and bring into play those private forces of personal self-con¬ 
trol and conscientiousness which are the chief and final hope of order 
and justice. 

Prisoners are men ; criminals are men ; jails are in and a part of the 
social system; and the identical principles, and as near an approach as 


ANNUAL REPORT ON PRISON DISCIPLINE. 


331 


possible to the methods of ordinary life, are both more penal and more 
reformatory than any others. It is found that the rales of sick-rooms 
in private homes are the best rules for public hospitals ; of course they 
cannot there be carried out in perfection, but they must be reached for¬ 
ward to with all pains. So the insane are now governed as nearly as 
possible by reason, and as much as possible like the sane. The old plan 
was to forget that insanity is a disease of sanity, just as the old medi¬ 
cal practice forgot that bodily disease was the disturbance of forces 
which in equilibrium we call health, and that the laws of health, and 
not the laws of disease, are the great foundation of true therapeutics. 
Until crime is regarded as a disease of society, that must be cured on 
social principles, and in accordance with social laws; until criminals are 
considered as belonging to the human species, and still mainly to be 
governed and cured by universal human motives and human sensibilities, 
we shall not have reached the very key to the whole problem. 

For the committee: 

H. W. BELLOWS. 

3 . REPORT OF THE STANDING- COMMITTEE ON PRISON DISCIPLINE. 

Prison discipline, as a subject of inquiry by this committee, includes 
the exposed classes in society and the criminals. The former are the 
friendless poor, the uneducated, the immigrant population, and those 
who are born into such surroundings as drunkenness, license, fraud, 
&c., or who unfortunately inherit, in their constitutions, imbecility, 
vicious impulses, or nervous disease. The latter are those who, having 
committed crime, are either in prison or at large. The best informa¬ 
tion to be had warrants the estimate of 40,000 as the number of actually 
imprisoned criminals in the United States at a given time. There are no 
reliable data on which to found a statement of the percentage of crim¬ 
inals who evade commitment to prison. But there is no doubt that a 
large proportion do. If it w r ere supposable that the objective causes of 
criminal acts, and the causes that tend to repress crime and contribute to 
the reformation of criminals, were about evenly balanced, we might hope 
that this proportion, whatever it be, comprised the criminals of the 
country, a fact sufficiently alarming, whether viewed in its financial 
relations or as a source of danger to life and property. But, doubtless, 
the influence of the criminals at large upon their progeny, upon their 
associates, and upon society in various ways, is in excess of the govern¬ 
mental and moral means for repression, and no general reformatory 
results are reached with those who are imprisoned; and since about one- 
third of these latter are annually released from prison, the prison popu¬ 
lation itself becomes a center of crime-production. 

A numerical estimate of the classes especially exposed to commit 
crime can scarcely be made with sufficient accuracy to give it much 
value; and since this report proposes to treat chiefly of the criminals 
themselves, it will not be attempted. It is safe to affirm, however, that 
there is a migratory population, without accumulated means and with 
few social ties, who earn irregularly and spend prodigally; that there 
are others who are penniless and improvident, though having a fixed 
domicile; and that there is a large class who, from one cause or another, 
depend on public or private charity. There are others still, whose 
occupation and associations serve to develop the baser passions at the 
sacrifice of the benevolent affections and moral sentiments, though pos¬ 
sessed of sufficient pecuniary resources. These several classes consti¬ 
tute, altogether, an uneducated mass of beings, with some virtues doubt- 


332 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 3 873. 


less, but nevertheless specially exposed to temptations. So there are 
hundreds of thousands fresh from foreign countries, possessing but 
imperfect knowledge of our language, our laws, and our social customs, 
strangers in a strange land, the prey of political partisans and unprin¬ 
cipled sharpers, who are crowded into the cities or pushed out upon the 
frontiers of civilization, and wholly unaccustomed to the freedom which 
they enjoy here, many of whom are likely to infringe upon the rights of 
property and person, and to offend against the peace and order of 
society. And also, beyond question, there is a large class, possessing 
the unfortunate inheritance of deficient mental and moral faculties, 
with ungovernable animal instincts or diseased nervous conditions, 
rendering their proper behavior, in mixed society, a practical impossi¬ 
bility, without the restraints of the law. 

We have, then, as the subject of our inquiries—1. Some 40,000 crim¬ 
inals actually in custody; 2. An unknown quantity of the same class 
abroad in the community ; and, 3. An indefinitely large population pecu¬ 
liarly exposed to crimes. 

Prison discipline, in the broad sense, has to do with the exposed 
classes by way of introducing and conducting special preventive agen¬ 
cies, andiu this work we seem to be limited at present to investigation 
and recommendation, for the people are so jealous of any apparent in¬ 
fringement of individual rights that they are impatient of the restraints 
and obligations necessary to this end. But good progress has been 
made of late through the enactment of compulsory education and strin¬ 
gent liquor-laws in some States, and, though these laws are very imper¬ 
fectly enforced, they show a degree of attention to prevention and an 
improved sentiment which are very encouraging. 

The State of Michigan follows Massachusetts in the next practical 
measure, and promises to improve upon the Munson establishment in 
the last named State. There is now in progress of construction by 
Michigan, at Coldwater, a State public school, embodying the main fea¬ 
tures of both the family and the congregate ideas, as separately applied 
throughout the country in its reform schools or houses of refuge. The 
establishment will comprise ten cottages for families of thirty each, 
with suitable buildings for meals, for school, and for employment, the 
whole to be attractive in architecture and general arrangement; and it 
is designed by the projectors to institute the very best school facilities 
and far better social surroundings for the scholars than are generally 
provided for the wards of a State. In short, the design is to qualify the 
inmates for the higher occupations and social walks, and to see that 
they are duly introduced into them on leaving the school. The act 
creating this institution provides that u there shall be received as pupils 
in such school those children that are over four and under sixteen years 
of age, that are in suitable condition of body and mind to receive in¬ 
struction, who are neglected and dependent, especially those who are 
now maintained in the county poor-houses, those who have been aban¬ 
doned by their parents, or are orphans, or whose parents have been con¬ 
victed of crime.’ 7 Doubtless further legislation will be had this year, 
enlarging the scope of this school so as to embrace all the really"neg¬ 
lected and dependent children of the State. It is hoped that the best 
expectations for this new institution may be more than realized, and 
that other States will establish similar ones. It is unnecessary to occupy 
space in this report in calling attentioh to the numerous and various 
private charities suggested, established, and sustained by the practical 
Christian sentiment of the times. Yet we may be indulged in offering 
our congratulations at the humanitarian and religious activities indi- 


ANNUAL REPORT ON PRISON DISCIPLINE. 


833 


cated by these and other means to improve the classes of society under 
consideration. It is hoped also that the influence of this association may 
be applied to facilitate a similar tendency in the spirit of civil legislation. 
When the advocacy and support of the various schemes and measures 
presented to the Federal and State legislatures are conditioned upon their 
value to the more defenseless and deficient class of the population, instead 
of the more influential and better-endowed portions, the prosperity of the 
whole will be best promoted, and much be accomplished toward the 
more effectual prevention of crime. 

The actual relation between criminals in confinement and the crime 
class in society, and the proper office of government toward each, are 
questions that should engage the attention of the association at once, 
for they must underlie all plans for practical reforms. It is coming to 
be understood that there is a marked difference between the exposed 
class and the criminal class—that an individual of vicious impulse who 
is restrained by his own will or saved from the overt act of crime by his 
favorable social surroundings is a better citizen than he is when the 
Rubicon of crime is passed. There is an added impulse given by the 
overt act, the hold of restraint is weakened, and, as a rule, the chances 
of moral reformation are greatly diminished. It is this knowledge that 
is producing the conviction in many thoughtful minds that criminals 
(and by criminals are meant all those who commit offenses justifying 
their public punishment) should remain under governmental guardian¬ 
ship so long as is required either for the protection of society or to aid 
the criminal in his efforts to reform by the moral force of his legal lia¬ 
bilities and relations. 

The criminals abroad in society probably supply the prison popula¬ 
tion to a much larger extent than is generally supposed. Prisoners who 
are received for the first time at the State prisons for felonious crime, 
have in many cases been previously imprisoned in jails, municipal prisons, 
or houses of refuge, for lesser offenses. And the prisoners of the latter 
class are notoriously repeaters, having had in some case’s the experience 
of imprisonment in the prisons of several States or cities. 

It is a popular fallacy that virtuous citizens often suddenly fall into 
crime and are committed to prison. Such instances may possibly exist, 
but they form the exception and not the rule. When persons have 
fallen into crime, having come down from virtuous and respectable 
heights of character and social position, it has been by an easy descend¬ 
ing grade of slight deflections at first, then moral delinquencies of the 
milder type, until, finally, and often from the accumulated pressure of 
inward impulse and outward distress, actual crime is committed. But 
they who have actually fallen are but a tithe of the criminal population. 
The mass are born into it, or are trained for it, with or without their 
own consent. The criminal class is an abnormal social growth. 

After suitable measures to repress this growth, the first care should be 
for the discharged criminals. The pittance bestowed on their release from 
prison and the scanty wardrobe supplied even when accompanied with the 
“good advice” of the warden and the “God bless you” ot the chaplain, 
are of little worth to the criminal, and much less to society, as a guar¬ 
antee of his future right conduct $ and, as a rule, no guarantee whatever 
is furnished by the fact of his imprisonment under the best known ex¬ 
isting prison system in this country. So that society is in the plight 
(which would be ridiculous if it were not too sad) of temporarily restrain¬ 
ing dangerous persons, then of still further degrading them by peniten¬ 
tiary treatment, and, finally, of turning them louse again, to ply their evil 
calling, without the least supervisory control. 


334 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Protection from discharged prisoners and the requisite aids for reforma¬ 
tion must come from benevolent societies, relying upon the prisoner’s 
voluntary acceptance of the proffered help and his permanent choice of 
an upright and virtuous life, or from governmental guardianship and con¬ 
trol. Private benevolence can never meet the want, for it is in its 
nature fitful, is insufficient in its means, and cannot command the 
beneficiary class. As a rule, they who most need the restraints and 
helps to be derived from this source are the last to choose it 5 their 
choice is rather indolence, excesses, and such associations as belong 
thereto. For the few reformed prisoners, and for the imbecile of body 
or mind, these efforts are of great value ; but for the headstrong, heed¬ 
less, hardened crowd who, having been released from prisons, are now 
abroad in the community, some authoritative supervisory control must 
be had, and is, indeed, the best thing for both. This surely can be had, 
for, however jealously we may guard the individual rights of the 
humblest citizen who keeps himself within the limits of the law, when 
he becomes a criminal, or commits offenses requiring, in the judgment 
of competent courts, his personal restraint, then he cannot reasonably 
complain if restraint is continued to such an extent, and so long as may 
be necessary to protect society from his depredations, and to protect him¬ 
self from himself. Public sentiment on this subject is somewhat divided. 
There are those who object to laws conferring governmental control 
of criminals after they are released from prison, on the ground that—( 1 ) 
Such control cannot be accomplished. (2) That it would create a crime 
class, generally known to be such. (3) That the untrammeled free action 
of the mind is necessary to self-improvement and reformation: therefore 
this control would tend to defeat its own object. Others believe that 
the apparent difficulty of operating such laws may be overcome by the 
ingenious mechanism of the law, and by experience in administering it. 
They believe that the crime class is created already, and that the effect 
of the law will only be to define and reveal it, which possesses for 
society, certainly, as many advantages as disadvantages. 

Unrestrained action, in opposition to or disregard of just obligation, 
is not liberty but license. The peace and welfare of society can only 
eomport with absolute individual freedom, when the impulses are pure, 
the reason fairly developed, the moral sense rightly cultivated, and the 
whole properly balanced. Not one of us but lives under somewhat ot 
restraint: none can safely give rein to all the impulses of his nature. 
The amount of restraint should, and in God’s moral government actually 
does, depend upon the moral quality of the mind acted upon. .Rightly 
considered, sin restricts our liberty ; so untaught and rebellious citizens 
should be hemmed in by human laws, and allowed only a limited range 
for^the exercise of free choice. 

It would seem to be a self-evident proposition that the unreformed 
criminals in the community can gain nothing by the absence of restraints, 
but would gain much that would be of real, though unwelcome value to 
them, by such continued supervisory control as is here suggested. It 
is hardly necessary to add that proper governmental supervision of dis¬ 
charged criminals can be had only by continuing indefinitely somewhat 
of the control conferred by the courts at the time of conviction. Once 
restrained of liberty for violating the laws, governmental control should 
never be fully relinquished until the prisoner has at least the following 
qualifications for citizenship : (1) He should be able to read, write, and 
cipher, sufficiently at least to keep account of his receipts and expendi¬ 
tures, and the mind should be so molded as to make his judgment in 
common affairs reasonably true. ( 2 ) He should possess within himself 


ANNUAL REPORT ON PRISON DISCIPLINE. 


335 


the experience and skill necessary to earn an honest living, or be taken 
in charge by others who are able and willing to provide for him, to 
which they should be pledged by a bond. (3) Satisfactory evidence 
should appear, not only that the prisoner has sufficient education and 
intelligence to care for himself, and possesses the ability to earn his 
living, or has friends to provide for him in respectability, but that there 
is a reasonable probability that he will use his faculties and resources 
aright; in other words, that there have beeu effected in his mind such 
changes, and these actually and practically tested, as will afford a guar¬ 
antee of reasonably right choices in the presence of different motives. 

Of course this involves changes in the prison system, but it involves 
much more than this. There are required training or testing estab¬ 
lishments; establishments somewhat technical in their character, spe¬ 
cially adapted to their peculiar work, in connection with w hich probation¬ 
ary periods of enlarged liberty should be allowed. They should embody 
the following principles, at least: (1) While legal control is retained, 
there must be such relaxation of present personal restraint that the pris¬ 
oner is consciously free, under the play of such motives as ordinarily 
influence individuals in society. Of course, failure to choose and act 
right within his sphere would be evidence of unpreparedness for return 
to society. (2) The aim should be to fit each individual for the highest 
social condition possible for him, and to this end the school or reform¬ 
atory must embrace instruction in employments, from the humblest me¬ 
chanic art or agricultural pursuit, to the higher mechanical employments 
and the fine arts; this upon the principle that the weak and w T ayward 
most need the support of good social surroundings, which are most 
likely to be found among those engaged in the higher employments. 
(3) A high standard of honor should pervade these establishments, 
and constitute the disciplinary regime. One who cannot distinguish 
what is honorable from what is dishonorable and mean, or who, thus 
distinguishing, has not self-control enough to restrain himself, should 
be deemed unfit for the school or reformatory, and, after due delibera¬ 
tion, should be banished to a lower grade of the series. Such a sense 
of honor involves moral integrity and a spirit of self-sacrifice, two qual¬ 
ities of character which, when dominant in the mind, are good guarantees 
of right citizenship. (4) The principle of religion must surely be im¬ 
planted here—not any denominational religious system , but sincere 
recognition and reverent love and worship of Almighty God. 

Protection for society from discharged prisoners through such estab¬ 
lishments as we have described, involves, of course, the preparation of 
prisoners for such a graduation while they are confined in the other 
prisons of the state. In other words, a reformed prison system, substan¬ 
tially as described in the Declaration of Principles of the National Prison 
Congress of 1870 and of the International Congress of 1872; a system 
in which the object of vindictive punishment is left out; a system in 
which indulgence for its own sake is left out; in short,a system, which 
neither relies for the suppression of crimes upon the repression of crim¬ 
inals, nor mainly upon their persuasion, but rather upon their restraint, 
cultivation, and cure. 

That the present wretched apology for a prison system in our country 
may, through proper effort, be supplanted by a truer ideal, w hich shall 
accomplish these results, the committee have no doubt. That, in the 
progress of civilization, this will be done , the committee fervently hope. 

It is believed that this association ought at once to ascertain in which 
of the several States the true ideal of a prison system may best be 
planted, and that our influence should be brought to bear’to accom- 


336 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF J873. 


plish it. An examination of the laws and institutions of sucli State 
should be had, and the necessary changes therein carefully noted ; indeed 
the whole work of the proposed experiment, and the successive steps 
leading to it, should be by us mapped out in detail, so that it would only 
remain for the State authorities to adopt or reject. A carefully selected 
committee of citizens of such State warmly enlisted in carrying it out, 
and the expected co-operation of the State authorities, if realized, would 
be likely to secure the trial, when we could present to other States, 
and the world, a practical demonstration of the wisdom of the plans and 
principles we hold, but unfortunately now content ourselves with only 
proclaiming over and over again in our various public documents. 

For the committee: 

Z. E. BROOK WAY. 

4. REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON DISCHARGED PRISONERS. 

The committee on discharged prisoners can add but little to the infor¬ 
mation contained in the report made to the association by the commit¬ 
tee of last year, which presented, as far as it was known, what organized 
effort had been made in the various States of our Union to improve the 
condition of this class of persons. 

It is sad to look over our vast country and see how utterly inade¬ 
quate are the means put forth for their relief. We are exhorted by the 
Apostle, u as we have opportunity, to do good unto all men,” (Gal. 6:10;) 
and it is one of the obvious duties of society, for its own sake and for 
that of its liberated convicts, to render permanent any beneficial influ¬ 
ences resulting from the discipline of the prison. But on the restoration 
to liberty of many thousands of convicts annually, little care is taken, 
save in a few favored localities, to give them the hand of Christian 
sympathy, to encourage them in good resolutions, and to u set them in a 
plain path because of their enemies.” (Ps. 27 : 11.) 

It is very easy to make general abstract declarations of duty or resolu¬ 
tions of action in the premises. A widely different matter is it to decide 
wisely what ought to be done in the multiform individual cases as they 
arise, and to do it. Whether his term of imprisonment has produced 
penitence and resolutions for virtuous living, or whether he is impeni¬ 
tent and prepared with whetted appetite to pursue a course of crime, 
the time of the release for each convict comes. Perhaps, a harsh keeper* 
who has fed and worked, restrained and punished him, who has looked 
upon him as one who must be resolutely u kept down,” a dangerous 
man, incapable of improvement, now feels that in parting some u good 
advice” from himself, as the representative of the State, is called for, 
and he counsels him to industry, sobriety, and honesty. But such 
counsel from such a source gives him no strength for the stern battle 
at once upon him. The grave questions : Where shall he go ? What 
shall he do ? With whom shall he associate? It maybe the sadder 
inquiry, who will associate with him'* press for immediate answer. He 
feels that he is degraded and disgraced. Shall he seek the friends whom 
he has grieved, perhaps wronged, or shall he go among strangers ? 

Does any oue think that society has no interest in the solution of these 
questions ? Is it beneath the notice of the conservators of the public 
welfare what influences shall determine the course of a man, despised 
indeed, but yet possessed of powers which at this critical moment of his 


* Many keepers, it must be said, are not Larsb, but pentle and gentlemanly, remem¬ 
bering the golden rule in dealing with those under their care. 



ANNUAL REPORT ON DISCHARGED PRISONERS. 


337 


life may be directed either to bless or to curse the community ? Tempta¬ 
tions to robbery, arson, murder run through his mind, but a few words 
prompted by a kind and loving heart, the offering of a prospect of 
honorable and useful employment, with a vista of better days temporally 
and spiritually, may be the means of turning his feet into the paths of 
virtue. By the rescue of such an one from the toils and penalties of 
crime and his addition to the ranks of honest industry, society gains by 
a relief from his depredations, and also from the apprehension of them, 
as well as by the actual benefit of his labors. 

Relief to discharged prisoners, however, requires wise consideration 
in the individual cases as they occur. It can, perhaps, hardly be accom¬ 
plished by special homes or manufactories, as has sometimes been pro¬ 
posed. The most hopeful plan appears to be the appointment for each 
considerable prison of an officer whose duty it should be to make himself 
acquainted with the prisoners, especially with those whose confinement 
is near to termination, to win their confidence by kindly ministrations 
and undissembled interest in their affairs, to learn by delicate inquiry 
their history, character, capabilities, and desires, and then by outside 
correspondence to secure, if possible, for each departing convict a 
comfortable home with employment suited to his needs, to which he can 
go at once, without being subjected to the temptations of contaminating 
associates. He should be, if necessary, accompanied to his new domi¬ 
cile. 

A mere mercenary laborer is not wanted here. The agent may be 
a plain man, but he should be possessed of some rare gifts and 
graces. He must be warm-hearted, generous, and, where it is deserved, 
confiding, of quick perception of character, of undoubted truthfulness 
and integrity, and of sound practical common sense, making his coun¬ 
sels valued because they are valuable. He should feel an earnest inter¬ 
est in the spiritual and temporal welfare of his wards, and manifest it 
by loving watchfulness over their subsequent career, holding them in 
the bonds of respectful attachment. 

Some of the prisoners’ aid societies have, happily for their beneficia¬ 
ries, found such men. Provision for the appointment of one or more 
agents should be made by law in every State where it cannot be 
effected by voluntary associations, which, with needful aid from the 
State, are greatly preferable. To be without some such arrange¬ 
ment seems a folly aud a crime, for if society sins by its neglect 
of duty, it must suffer the penalty. Wardens have reported of 
some discharged prisoners that they have loitered about the prison 
for hours, utterly at a loss to decide where to go. Some have been de¬ 
coyed into vile rum-holes and stripped of the few dollars allowed them 
on their discharge. Others have been liberated at their own request 
before the morning light, that they might escape the seductions of old 
associates wdiorn they knew' would be lying in wait for them during the 
day. Some, refused employment or discharged as soon as their late home 
was known, or stung by the averted looks and cutting words of old ac¬ 
quaintance, have become utterly disheartened, and, on temptation, have 
broken sincere resolutions of correct life. The value of the counsel and 
assistance of a wise and sympathizing agent in such cases need not be 
shown. This officer should have an office in the prison or contiguous to 
it, w here,.by public announcement, he could receive applications for 
laborers. 

It may appear a solecism to say that the care of discharged prisoners 
should commence on the day of their incarceration, but as the wislied- 
for end is their effectual separation from the criminal classes, it is obvi- 
H. Ex. 185-22 



338 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


ous that legislative enactments and the discipline of the prison should 
he such as to promote and, so far as possible, to secure that object. The 
system of marks, and grades, and tests; of religious, moral, and liter¬ 
ary instruction combined with labor; of conditionally promised commu¬ 
tation and pecuniary reward—these encourage a prisoner to do right,, 
stimulate him to overcome his evil propensities, and strengthen him in 
habitual good conduct. Many will thus become worthy of the recom¬ 
mendation of the agent, and will* justify it on their complete liberation. 
Of those who evince no signs of reformation, and who will only return 
to society to prey upon it, it may not be out of place to express the con¬ 
viction that they ought not to enter the list of discharged prisoners. 
The victim of some terrible accident is not sent to the hospital for a 
prescribed time, but until curative treatment restores his bruised body 
or shattered limbs. An insane patient is retained in the asylum, not 
for so many weeks, but till returning reason tits him for self-control. 
In the case of a desperate criminal, a special time-sentence seems equally 
inappropriate, and should be changed to one conditioned upon his refor 
mation. 

For the committee: 

SAMUEL ALLINSON. 


III.—PAPERS COMMUNICATED. 

1. The criminal. 

By Dr. Prosper Despine , France. 

[Translation.] 

The importance of this subject appears from the single fact, eminently 
rational, that a knowledge of the criminal is an essential guide to aright 
treatment of him; a knowledge of him, not in his acts, which are but 
too well known, but in his spirit, in the psychical condition which impels 
him to commit crime, and to renew the monstrous act as often as cir¬ 
cumstances permit. 

There must be something abnormal in the disposition of criminals, 
when they yield, with the utmost facility, to desires which would excite 
the strongest repugnance and horror in a truly moral man. Does not 
this abnormal state reveal itself in the clearest manner when, contrary 
to what poets and moralists have represented, we see the wretch who 
has committed crime exhibiting no symptons of remorse, but rather a 
disposition to repeat the same criminal act? Such is the thought which 
has prompted me to study, with the greatest care, the psychical condition 
of criminals, or, if you please, the psychology of criminality, in order to 
till a hiatus which, hitherto, has existed in science. 

I propose, in this paper, to set forth some of the views suggested by 
my psychological study of criminals. These views, exhibited at length 
in a work which I have recently published, will be traced here only in 
outline. But I hope that, however briefly presented, they may engage 
others to enter the path which I have opened, and to pursue it with per¬ 
severance; a path which I consider the most rational and the most likely 
to lead to a right treatment of those perverted beings who disturb society 
so profoundly and with such regularity that both the number and the 
species of their crimes may be foreseen and predicted with almost unerr- 



ABNORMAL MORAL STATE OF CRIMINALS. 339 

ing precision. Now, just as in order to the rational treatment of a sick 
man, it is necessary to study the organic disease with which he has been 
attacked; in the same manner is it essential to know the abnormal 
psychical condition, or, to speak better, the moral disease which produced 
the crime; a condition without which, from the study I have made of 
criminals, great crimes are never committed in cold blood; for I have 
found, without exception, this abnormal psychical condition in all great 
criminals. 

I have spoken of moral disease. This demands a clear and exact defi¬ 
nition. Let it not be supposed that I look upon the criminal as diseased 
in such a sense that, like the insane, he stands in need of medical treat¬ 
ment. If, in certain cases, crime is committed under the influence of a 
pathological cerebral condition, little apparent to the magistrate, but in 
general recognized by the physician versed in medical jurisprudence, 
the ordinary criminal, the criminal who peoples the prisons, is almost 
always healthy in body. His mental state does not grow worse, like that 
of the insane patient, in the sense of the gradual destruction of all his 
faculties. Let us, then, settle this preliminary point, viz, that the crim¬ 
inal is not a patient, and that, in this respect, he must not be likened to 
the insane. 

But, although sound in body, the criminal none the less manifests 
psychical anomalies of a very grave character. But we must not seek 
these anomalies in the intellectual faculties, properly so called; in the 
perception, in the memory, and in the faculty of associating ideas, of 
reasoning, that is to say, in the reflective powers. Although many crim¬ 
inals are as scantily endowed with intellectual as with moral faculties, 
it is not the lack of intelligence which is the distinctive character of 
these dangerous beings; for there are among them persons of great 
intelligence, capable of forming ingenious combinations, which are the 
product only of strong reflective faculties. The distinctive anomalies 
of criminals are found only in the moral faculties, in the instincts 
of the soul, out of which spring its desires and proclivities, and which 
constitute our principles of action : for it is these which impel us to act 
in one direction or in another. 

In studying criminals, the first thing which strikes us, and which is 
obvious to all, is the perversity , the criminal thoughts and desires, in¬ 
spired by the evil inclinations and vices inherent in all mankind, but 
more emphasized in criminals than in other men. It is the violent pas¬ 
sions—hatred, revenge, jealousy, envy ; it is also other passions which, 
without being violent, are no less tenacious in criminals, such as cu¬ 
pidity, the love of pleasure, profound repugnance to a regular life and 
to labor, and an intense indolence. These two last-named vices impel 
criminals to seek the means of satisfying the material wants of life and 
the enjoyments which they crave, not in honest toil, but in readier ways, 
which are immoral and hateful—in theft, arson, and murder. These 
qualities in criminals are manifest to the eyes of all. But do these ma¬ 
lign passions, these immoral propensities aud desires, constitute a really 
abnormal psychical state? By no means; and the proof is, that these 
evil tendencies, these wicked passions, these perverse and criminal de¬ 
sires, make themselves felt in the soul of the most upright man, without 
his ceasing to conduct himself in a virtuous manner, for the reason that 
he wages a successful warfare against them. There is no need to en¬ 
large upon this point, which is so well known, that persons engaged in 
the study of the criminal, seeing in him only perversity, vicious incli¬ 
nations, immoral desires, have considered him, in a moral point of view, 


340 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


as normally constituted. His moral irregularity, then, is to be looked for 
somewhere else. 

To understand in what this irregularity consists, let us examine what 
passes in the man recognized as normal in his moral constitution, when 
he tinds himself in presence of a perverse thought, an immoral desire. 
Every one sees it in a moment. The conscience, that is to say, the 
right instincts of the soul, the moral faculties, three words which mean 
the same thing; the conscience, I say, is roused ; the moral sentiments, 
opposed to the vicious instincts, are shocked by these ideas and desires, 
and, excited by the wound thus inflicted upon them, they react more 
or less vigorously, according to the degree of power they have in each 
individual. From this, a moral conflict springs up in the soul between 
the good and the evil sentiments. In this moral conflict appear, accord¬ 
ing to the more or less perfect moral nature of the man normally consti¬ 
tuted, three orders of sentiments: 1. The good sentiments, which are 
developed and exert their force on the selfish side—that is to say, the 
moral sentiments which prompt to virtue and withhold from vice in a 
well-considered personal interest, but with no other view than some 
present or future advantage; such for example as the fear of punisli- 
ishment, of public scorn, of the loss of liberty, the dread of being de¬ 
prived of the enjoyment of one’s possessions, of being separated from 
his family, of leading a wretched life, a life full of privations, &c. 
2 . The generous sentiments, which lead us to act charitably toward our 
fellows, under the promptings of a kind heart, and with a view to the 
contentment of our generous inclinations. 3. The moral sense, the sen¬ 
timent of right and wrong, accompanied by a feeliug of obligation to 
do what is right, not in view of any satisfaction or advantage to be 
hoped from it, but because it is right; and to abstain from what is 
wrong, not on account of any suffering to be feared as a consequence, 
but because it is felt to be wrong. This unselfish and disinterested sen¬ 
timent is the highest expression of the conscience, and its motive 
power of action, instead of being some personal interest or satisfaction, 
is duty. It is this lofty moral faculty which makes the man who is so 
happy as to possess it feel that he must repel a vicious or criminal act, 
however great the advantage to be gained by it, and however painful the 
course to be taken. It is this which drew from Kant, the great German 
philosopher and moralist, the exclamation, profoundly true : “Duty! 
wonderful idea, which acts neither by insinuation, nor" by flattery, nor 
by menace, but simply by sustaining in the soul thy naked law, thus 
compelling respect for thyself, if not always securing obedience to thy 
commands.” 

Such are the three orders of sentiments, of moral instincts, with which 
nature has endowed us to combat the perverse instincts which she has 
also placed in our hearts, thus putting the antidote at the side of the 
poison. 

Let us now glance at mankind as a whole. By the side of men 
normally constituted, although imperfect because they are men, what 
do we see? Anomalies, monstrosities. In a physical point of view, by 
the side of men well-formed, of robust health, of beautiful and noble 
forms, we find beings sickly, weak, ill-shaped, puny. Viewing men 
intellectually, what do we see? The same differences. By the side of 
men of genius, who create sciences, who produce those marvels of the 
imagination which, in literature and the arts, excite our enthusiasm, we 
find vulgar intelligences, insensible to the creations of genius and the 
splendors of nature, incapable of lifting themselves above the direction 
of their business and the material wants of life. Descending in the 


ABNORMAL MORAL STATE OF CRIMINALS. 341 

scale, we meet, at last, with the weak-minded, the imbecile, the idiotic. 
These natural imperfections, these anomalies, these infirmities, these 
monstrosities, which we see in the physical and intellectual world, 
exist also in the moral, as marked, as numerous, and as varied. 

It is to the reality and the nature of these moral anomalies that I de¬ 
sire to call the attention of this congress, for these anomalies, the sad¬ 
dest, perhaps, of those which affect humanity, are completely ignored, or 
rather their importance has not been perceived. Just because the man 
is in health, because he has command of his ideas, because he reasons, 
because he is intellectually intelligent, it has been thought that he must 
be also morally intelligent; that his moral faculties are in a healthy state ; 
that his conscience is capable of feeling and weighingright and wrong, and 
that he possesses the ability to repress his evil desires without having 
ever dreamed of studying his moral nature, the state of his conscience ; 
without having once thought of inquiring whether he is really endowed 
with moral instincts, with the moral faculties directly antagonistic to 
the depraved instincts. 

The infirmities, the moral anomalies, to which your attention has been 
called, what are they ? In what part of the man are they to be sought ? 
Is it in the depraved instincts, in the immoral proclivities, in the criminal 
desires, even '% Not at all; for, as I have already observed, the perverse 
sentiments, and the depraved ideas and desires which they inspire, are as 
much inherent in humanity as the virtuous sentiments and their moral 
inspirations. The presence of perverted sentiments does not, then, of 
itself constitute an anomaly. Whenever the antidote is found in the 
heart beside the poison, the moral state of that man is regular. But 
suppose the antidote represented by the moral sentiments is either too 
weak or wholly wanting. In that case the anomaly exists incontestably, 
the moral equilibrium is destroyed, for the virtuous instincts of the soul, 
and the moral thoughts inspired by them, can alone serve as a counter¬ 
poise to the power of evil passions, of perversity. It is this psychic 
anomaly, this feebleness, this absence of conscience with which criminals 
are stricken ; and it is this alone which makes the criminal; it is this 
which makes it possible for a man to commit acts that wound profoundly 
the moral sense. The intellectual faculties are incapable, by them¬ 
selves, of serving as a counterpoise to depravity; they take part in the 
combat against it only when they are directed in their activity by the 
moral faculties. It is a psychological principle which I have demon¬ 
strated in the work to which reference was made above, and which shows 
the supreme importance of the part played by these latter faculties in 
the battle against crime. 

The psychic anomalies now under consideration, the absence of the 
moral faculties which, connected as it is with the presence of the im¬ 
moral proclivities, makes criminals, are often hereditary, as are all the 
other vices which inhere in human nature. How often do descendants 
inherit from their ancestors the moral anomalies out of which crime, for 
the most part, springs! Not the slightest doubt can rest upon this 
point in presence of the numerous examples cited by Dr. Bruce Thomp¬ 
son, physician to the prison of Perth, in the Edinburgh Evening Courant 
of the 26th November, 1869. The organic condition connected with 
these grave moral anomalies, without being a real disease, since it co¬ 
exists with a healthy state of the bodj r , has, nevertheless, a relationship 
more or less remote, but indubitable, with the pathological conditions 
of the brain, which produce the different varieties of insanity. The 
cases in which the children of the insane become ordinary criminals are 


342 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1S73. 


too numerous not to attribute the origin of this fact to an hereditary or¬ 
ganic influence. 

The extreme feebleness, and still more the absence, of the moral 
instincts, whether due to the fact that their precious germs, congeni¬ 
tally too weak to exhibit themselves spontaneously, have not been de¬ 
veloped by a right moral education, or to the fact that the germs of 
these faculties are altogether wanting, constitute the saddest of the 
monstrosities to which the human race is subject. This monstrosity 
may receive various designations; I have given it, indiscriminately, the 
name of moral idiocy, moral insensibility, lack of conscience, different 
terms which give an exact idea of its nature. It differs infinitely in its 
forms, according as the virtuous sentiments are weak or deficient, and 
in its intensity, according to the degree of weakness found in these sen¬ 
timents, a weakness which may reach to an absolute nullity. The sen¬ 
timents whose feebleness or absence makes the moral idiot may be 
divided into three classes: 1, the moral sense; 2, the generous senti¬ 
ments—pity, benevolence, charity, respect; 3, the sentiments of pru¬ 
dence, foresight, fear, and a well-considered personal interest. Let us 
take a rapid survey of the several kinds of moral idiocy caused by the 
absence of these various moral sentiments. 

1 . The absence of the moral sense in criminals may be readily made 
apparent. The conscience of the man who is so happy as to possess it, 
is wounded by his depraved thoughts, desires, and acts. It is, there¬ 
fore, evident that he who experiences no moral repulsion in the presence 
of his criminal desires, and who, after having satisfied these desires, 
has no feeling of remorse, is really without a moral sense. This absence 
of moral recoil from criminal desires and of remorse after the commis¬ 
sion of crime is a fact of observation of which I cannot now stay to 
give the proofs; but they have already been given by many observers. 

2 . The generous seutiments are wanting in criminals equally with the 
moral sense. Nature has endowed most men with sentiments of pity, 
of benevolence, and of charity toward other men. But great criminals 
are an exception to this rule. Without pity for the victims whom they 
rob or assassinate, the commencement of the criminal act awakens no 
kindly sentiment within them; nor does it recall them to moral reason, 
or arrest them in the execution. They destroy everything which forms 
an obstacle to their rapacity, and they do not cease to strike till their 
victim is without life. They never bemoan him; they even insult his 
corpse, cast ridicule upon it, and eat and drink tranquilly beside it. 
They have no sense of the value of human life. They murder for the 
veriest trifles, for a few pieces of money, for a momentary gratification; 
and not a thought is given to the sorrow they will cause to the family 
of their victim. If they commit the crime under some violent passion, 
they boast of the act; they glory in it; and they declare themselves 
ready to repeat what they have done. If their victim has escaped 
their rage, they loudly proclaim their regret, and express their deter¬ 
mination to be more adroit next time. The reports of the court of assizes 
are filled with evidences of the cynicism with w hich criminals make 
these declarations. Insensible to the evil w hich they commit, regard¬ 
less of the sad fate of their victims and of their families, they are 
equally indifferent to the punishments to which their accomplices may 
be subjected. It is truly marvelous to observe the facility with which 
criminals, who have been arrested, denounce their accomplices who are 
still at liberty, and how w illingly they aid in their arrest. They do 
this either with the selfish aim of transferring to their accomplices the 
responsibility of the acts whose pressure they feel and of being less 


ABNORMAL MORAL STATE OF CRIMINALS. 


343 


severely treated, or with tlie wicked purpose of involving them in pun¬ 
ishment, and of not suffering alone the chastisement with which they 
are menaced. The bond which unites these wretched beings is interest 
alone, and not affection. Thus, the moment this selfish bond is broken, 
they treat each other as enemies. 

3. The sentiments which stand connected with a well considered self- 
interest are those which are most frequently wanting in these excep¬ 
tional beings, so abnormally constituted as regards the natural instincts 
of the soul. The lack of prudence is most conspicuous in individuals 
destitute of the moral sense, and in whom the selfish fear of punishment 
is stifled by some violent passion, such as hatred, vengeance, jealousy, 
and sometimes even avarice. In that case, we see thesemadmen threaten, 
publicly or privately, the person who is the object of their passion with 
the fate to which they have doomed him. These reiterated menaces in¬ 
dicate with certainty a crime on the point of commission, which it would 
be easy to prevent. There are criminals so devoid of the ^sentiment of 
prudence, that they talk coolly of appropriating what belongs to others 
by brushing aside all the obstacles which they encounter, so that, when 
the crime has been committed, the author is instantly recognized. 

Improvidence is strongly characteristic of the greater part of crimi¬ 
nals. It is owing to this singular trait, which belongs, more or less, to 
the whole class, that they are entirely absorbed by the desire which 
possesses them at the moment. One would say that they do not so 
much as cast a thought toward the future, w T hich, for them, is as though 
it would never be. The consequences of the crimes which they medi¬ 
tate make no impression upon them : and if they think at all of punish¬ 
ment, it seems to them that they will never be overtaken by it. Their 
mind is intent solely on satisfying present desires, in regard to which 
their conscience has no reproaches. In this manner, nearly all pursue 
the end they have in view, scarcely thinking of punishment, rushing 
fearlessly after some material good, often of infinitesimal proportions— 
after miserable pittances of money, madly squandered in a few days, 
even in a few hours. This extreme improvidence and this absence of 
fear give to criminals an audacity and an effrontery truly surprising. 
Without moral curb, and scarcely held in check by the well-considered 
self-interest which fear inspires, how T should they not be daring, auda¬ 
cious ? But this blind audacity is not born of true courage, which fore¬ 
sees danger, which fears it even, and which confronts it under the sole 
impulse of duty. This stolid audacity is the result of several species of 
moral insensibility, by which the criminal is characterized. 

The man who can sell, at so cheap a rate, everything which a rational 
regard to his own interest would prompt him to desire, must necessa¬ 
rily be but feebly endowed with the sentiments which that interest in¬ 
spires, and especially with fear. For trifling and transitory advantages, 
he exposes himself to the hardest chastisements, to the loss of personal 
liberty in places of detention, where he will be treated with severity ; 
he exposes himself to be separated from his family, to be scorned, to 
die a violent and ignominious death, which wounds to the last degree 
the dignity of man. In a word, he prefers a vagrant and precarious 
existence to a life tranquil and regular. 

In presence of these various sorts of moral insensibility, which are 
found in different degrees in all criminals, can there remain a doubt 
that these wretched beings are the subjects of a grave moral anomaly? 
Can there be a doubt of it, when this absence or deficiency of the moral 
faculties shows itself so palpably in its effects—first in the absence of 
all reprobation of the criminal thought, and then in the utter absence 


344 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


of remorse after the criminal act ? If I were not restricted to the nar¬ 
row limits of a lecture, it would he easy to prove that the absence of 
these higher faculties causes a rude shock to reason and to moral lib. 
erty; but I will confine myself strictly to the question in hand. 

The understanding, however great it may be, does not prevent or 
diminish the shock caused to the reason and the moral liberty of the 
criminal by his moral insensibility ; it does not hold this man back from 
crime. Far from it. The understanding, when guided exclusively by 
perverted moral instincts, becomes, on the contrary, a power all the 
more dangerous in proportion as it is developed. Intent solely on the 
satisfaction of these instincts, it devises criminal projects and seeks the 
means of carrying them into effect; it produces, above all, malefactors 
fertile in criminal inventions, able chiefs of criminal gangs. In men 
depraved and morally insensible, the understanding is, therefore, a dan¬ 
gerous power. 

Mere intellectual knowledge has very little influence in holding back 
these morally insensible natures from the perpetration of the crimes to 
which they are urged by their evil instincts; of which let the following 
fact serve as proof. Criminals know that what they do is forbidden by 
the laws, and that they are menaced by punishments; they know, gen¬ 
erally, even the kind of penalties to which they expose themselves by 
such or such a crime; for professional criminals are well acquainted 
with the articles of the penal code which concern themselves. But 
does this knowledge hinder their attempts against society $ Not in the 
least; society is none the less assailed by them. Laws and punish¬ 
ments are alike powerless, when the moral idiocy of these criminally- 
inclined beings extends to the imbecility or absence of the sentiment 
of fear; a thing by no means rare. This fact has long been well known, 
for it is an old experience: ‘‘Laws without good morals profit nothing.” 
Laws, without moral sentiments and the good manners to which they 
give birth, are powerless and vain. The utter inefficacy of mere head 
knowledge, of intellectual power, before the depraved instincts of men 
devoid of moral sentiments, has not escaped the sagacity of the honor¬ 
able president of the American Prison Association, Mr. Horatio Sey¬ 
mour, who expressed it in the following terms, at a public meeting held 
in New York, January 26, 1872 : u Crime grows in skill with every ad¬ 
vance of the arts and sciences. Knowledge is power, but it is not 
virtue. It is as ready to serve evil as good.” At a time when almost 
everywhere, and especially in France, intellectual culture is proclaimed 
as the principal barrier against crime; at a time when little impor¬ 
tance is attached to moral culture by means of education, the true means 
nevertheless of preventing this odious act, I am happy to be able to 
cite, in support of my opinion, a respectable name, and one having a 
higher authority than mine. 

1 have spoken outy of criminals who commit crime in cold blood. I 
desire to add a few words concerning criminals who commit such acts 
under the influence of violent passions, such as hatred, revenge, jealousy, 
anger. In most of these, we find a moral insensibility as great as in 
cold-blooded criminals; an insensibility proved by the absence of re¬ 
morse after the crime. Still, a small number of these persons may pos¬ 
sess the moral sentiments to a sufficient degree. Suddenly overborne 
by some violent passion, which instantly stifles and paralyzes the nobler 
sentiments, they find themselves for the time morally insensible, and 
they commit the crime at a moment when all they feel and think pushes 
them on to it, and when none of their virtuous sentiments has sufficient 
force to combat the criminal desire. But when once the passion is sat- 


ABNORMAL MORAL STATE OF CRIMINALS. 


345 


isfied, it loses its power, and no longer holds complete possession of the 
soul. Then the moral sentiments, momentarily stifled, resume their 
activity, and, shocked by the depraved act, they produce a feeling of 
remorse and at the same time of regret that an act has been done con¬ 
trary to their own interest; a remorse and regret all the more vivid, 
because the sentiments which had felt the shock, and which now cause 
these pangs of repentance, are stronger and more powerful than the 
passions which had obtained a temporary victory. In some cases, the 
jnoral suffering is so violent that it plunges the individual into despair, 
and impels him to suicide. I can only make a passing reference to 
these rare cases of genuine remorse after the commission of crime. We 
never meet with this sentiment in the criminal who has acted in cold 
blood, and only in a few rare cases do we meet it in one who has com¬ 
mitted the crime under the influence of a violent passion. With these 
latter, amendment is prompt and easy, and relapses do not occur. This 
fact, which is altogether natural, did not escape Mittermaier. Persons 
employed in prisons, he says, have remarked that those imprisoned for 
crimes committed under the influence of violent passions—accidental 
crimes—sometimes show signs of repentance ; that they are more sub¬ 
missive ; and that they exhibit a conduct more regular than criminals 
who have acted in cold blood, and of whom a great number are crimi¬ 
nals by profession. 

This rapid and very incomplete survey which I have made of the 
psychical state of criminals, will, I think, be sufficient to convince the 
members of this congress that account should be taken of it in the treat¬ 
ment to which they are subjected, the study of which treatment is the 
object for which the congress is convened. 

As the criminal offers a serious danger to society, society must defend 
itself against him; this is an incontestable right. But against whom 
has society to exercise that right? Is it against a man who has in his 
conscience, like other men, the necessary means to combat and conquer 
his immoral desires? According to the very brief description I have 
given of the abnormal moral state of which all criminals are more or 
less the subjects, we cannot fail to see that the moral faculties, which 
are pre-eminently the antagonists of the vicious sentiments, are want¬ 
ing to them in different degrees. If these men, the subjects of a real 
moral idiocy, are dangerous, they are also deserving of our pity. To 
shield ourselves from the danger with which they menace us, we are 
under a necessity of separating them from society. This separation, 
with the hard conditions necessarily involved in it, constitutes in itself 
a punishment. I need not here concern myself with the kind of impris¬ 
onment which it is most expedient to adopt in regard to them ; that does 
not belong to the subject which I proposed to consider. Still, I will ex¬ 
press, in two words, my thought on this point: I regard all modes of 
imprisonment as evil and dangerous, as well to society as to the criminal, 
if their only aim is punishment pure and simple. I think, also, that all 
inodes, provided only that mode is chosen which is best suited to the 
special character of each criminal, may be good, if they have in view 
the true interest of society, which is entirely based on the moral regen¬ 
eration of the criminal, and if also the most effectual means are taken 
to accomplish that regeneration. The treatment which aims only to 
punish for the sake of punishing is dangerous both to society and the 
criminal; it never improves the criminal, and often makes him worse; 
it produces from- 40 to 45 per cent, of recidivists. Let me cite here, as 
regards the existing prison system in France, some words of a French 
magistrate, which attest its total want of success. u In vain,” says M. 


346 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

Bonneville de Marsangy, “ have our successive governments, in their 
anxiety for improvement, sent to Switzerland, to Belgium, to Holland, 
to Spain, to the United States even, citizens of the highest distinction, 
for the purpose of collecting information on all the experiments which 
have been tried; in vain have they sought the opinion of the members 
of the magistracy and of the high functionaries of the administration; 
in vain have they appealed to the special knowledge of the directors, 
chaplains, and inspectors of prisons ; in vain have the legislative cham¬ 
bers elaborated the bills of 1840, 1844, and 1846; in vain has the Acad¬ 
emy of Moral and Political Sciences undertaken the study of this delicate 
question: we are compelled to confess that, at the very moment in 
which I speak, all these imposing and multiplied labors and efforts have, 
so far, wrought no practical result, and the innumerable deliberations 
had on the penitentiary question, instead of eliciting light, certainty, 
agreement on certain well-understood points, seem to have produced 
absolutely nothing but confusion and mistrust, a sort of final irnpuis- 
sance, terminating in the statu quo ; we are always there.” This avowal 
was made in 1867, in an article published in the Contemporaneous Be- 
view. And is not this very congress a fresh proof that all is still un¬ 
settled in the penitentiary question ? If such is the fact, we may rest 
assured that it is because we have taken a wrong road; it is because, 
hitherto, having taken as our guides on this question only fear and 
vengeance, and not scientific data, we have ever had in view punish¬ 
ment alone ; it is because, never having studied the moral state which 
leads a man to crime, we have ignored this abnormal condition altogether, 
and we have not been able to perceive that, in order to arrive at a favor¬ 
able result, we must aim to bring down to the lowest possible point this 
anomaly, whioh is so fruitful a source of crime. I have shown that the 
criminal is a being apart, that he is different, in a moral point of view, 
from other men. If this is so, would not the best way to prevent crime 
and protect society be to cause this difference to cease, if not wholly, 
since that is impossible, at least approximately, enough to render the 
criminal a safe member of society. The legislation which takes this 
point of departure will attain, we may be well assured, a degree of per¬ 
fection which has no existence at the present moment; for, as Beccaria 
has said, “All legislation which stops with the punishment of crime, 
and does not aim to effectually prevent it, is imperfect.” Now, to im¬ 
prove the prisoner, to develop in him the germs of whatever good senti¬ 
ments he may possess, were they but the sentiments of material interest 
if he has no others, sentiments with which, nevertheless, he will be able 
to fight his depraved appetites; to give him the habit and the love of 
labor, by which he will be able to live honestly; and to arrive at these 
results by humane processes, with a view to teach him by example to 
act with humanity himself, instead of treating him as we would not 
treat dumb beasts—is not this the true means of preventing crime? 

Beformatory treatment, applied to individuals abnormally organized 
in a moral point of view, is not a utopia born of my imagination. M. 
Demetz is the first who practised this treatment in France, which he 
has done with rare perfection in the juvenile penitentiary of Mettray. 
While these juvenile delinquents, when thrown into prison pell-mell with 
adult criminals, showed seventy-five recidivists in every hundred, they 
show only four per cent, under the strict but paternal'direction of M. 
Demetz. No doubt this system, applied to adults, would require some 
modifications; but the base would be the same. The reformatory sys¬ 
tem has been also applied to adults, and, although its application lias 
been but imperfectly applied in their case, it has, nevertheless, yielded 


ABNORMAL MORAL STATE OF CRIMINALS. 347 

very remarkable results. In my work on criminals I have cited, among 
other results, those obtained by the director of the penitentiary of Al¬ 
bertville, Savoy, during an administration full of mingled firmness and 
gentleness. He governed his prisoners by awakening in them virtuous 
sentiments. By this means he obtained such an ascendency over them 
that he did not hesitate to let them go outside of the prison premises, 
single or in companies, under the surveillance of a keeper, to execute 
various labors. In this manner he so held them to duty by the bond 
of gratitude and love, that he was never compromised by a solitary es¬ 
cape ; for the prisoners knew that by running away they would compro¬ 
mise the responsibility of their benefactor. Compelled at length by the 
administration to carry out, in all their rigor, mere official and routine reg¬ 
ulations, and that, too, despite the exceptional morality and the habit of 
work which he had introduced into the prison, this model director prefer¬ 
red rather to resign his position than hold it at the cost of putting in prac¬ 
tice a discipline which he knew to be detestable. Nor is this the only 
example that can be cited in favor of the superiority of moral over phy¬ 
sical force in subduing and controlling prisoners. The honorable Hr. 
Wines, in a report, made at a meeting in New York last January, of 
the result of his voyage to Europe for the purpose of organizing the 
International Penitentiary Congress of London, referred to the Irish 
system devised and carried out by Sir Walter Crofton. “ Never have I 
seen, elsewhere,” says Hr. AVines, “ anything comparable to the inter¬ 
mediate prison at Lusk. Here is a prison which is not a prison, con¬ 
sisting of two iron tents capable of accommodating a hundred inmates, 
and a farm of two hundred acres—an establishment without bars, bolts, 
or inclosing walls; and yet, in fourteen years not a dozen escapes have 
taken place, thus proving the dictum of Hr. AVichern, th#t 4 the strong¬ 
est wall is no wall;’ in other words, that a wall of influence is stronger 
than a wall of granite.” This is precisely what has been said by M. 
Yacherot, of the Institute: “Attraction in the realm of mind is the 
greatest directing force—the surest means of government.” 

It is not claimed that all criminals are capable of being improved, re¬ 
formed by moral treatment. This system, although the most rational, 
will not always succeed. The moral nature of assassins and habitual 
criminals is so bad that they will sometimes continue rebellious to the 
end. Nevertheless moral treatment, surrounded by the necessary pre¬ 
cautions, ought still to be tried upon them, and may produce marvelous 
results. However that may be, the criminal ought to re-enter society 
only when he has given guarantees of safety by his good conduct and 
industry, either in the prison itself or during a period of provisional 
liberty, and not at the end of a time fixed in advance by the law, as is 
the case in the system which makes punishment its sole aim. In a better 
system, which raises the penitentiary question to the rank of a science, 
each prisoner should be studied individually and treated according to 
his character and according to the degree of moral idiocy with which he 
is affected. To treat all criminals in the same manner is as absurd as 
would be the proposition to cure all the diseases of the body, diversified 
as they are, by the same medical agents. It is in making these princi¬ 
ples the starting-point—principles based on a conscientious psychologi¬ 
cal study of criminals—that we shall, little by little, be able to see 
crime diminish in frequency. I cannot too earnestly recommend this 
study. The proposal to build any system of criminal treatment what¬ 
soever without giving it a scientific basis is a proposal to rear upon 
shifting sands a structure that shall be solid and enduring. 

Eminent men, inspired by the noblest instincts of the heart, by pity 


348 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873 


toward beings morally feeble, have undertaken, by gentle and loving 
means, to lead them to a regular and virtuous life. In employing a sys¬ 
tem opposed to official rigor they have succeeded in their attempt. 
What these benefactors of the human race have essayed under the sole 
inspiration of their feelings is precisely what is taught by cold, hard 
science, that is to say, a criminal treatment inspired and guided by a 
knowledge of the psychical state of criminals and of the laws which 
govern the moral world. In effect, it is impossible that science should 
hnd itself in antagonism with the highest moral teaching, viz, to render 
good for evil. Science demonstrates that society, in its own interest, 
should employ toward the man who has injured it a treatment which, 
though marked by the utmost firmness, shall be, at the same time, 
humane and charitable. 

2. On the treatment of long-sentenced and life-sentenced 

PRISONERS. 

By Mary Carpenter , England. 

The right treatment of prisoners condemned to confinement for life, 
or for so long a period as to be virtually tantamount to this, has never 
yet received special attention in public discussion on prison discipline. 

It was thought expedient by those who prepared the programme of 
the recent Prison Congress at London, that this first meeting of the kind 
which has ever taken place in the history of the world should not be 
embarrassed by the introduction of any topics likely to involve consid¬ 
erable differences of principle and practice; it was therefore determined 
that the subjects of inquiry should be confined to the general objects of 
prison discipline and the reformatory treatment of offenders, whether 
adult or juvenile. Thus was obtained from that most important assem¬ 
blage, which represented the whole civilized world, an acceptance aud 
declaration of principles which will serve as a basis of future legislation 
in every country. Those persons who are cut off from society for their 
evil deeds, and who are briefly denominated “ convicts,” can no longer 
be ignorantly treated in a manner calculated to produce the most in¬ 
jurious effects on society, as well as on themselves. The public has had 
light thrown on the whole subject, and it is for them to require that the 
treatment of those who must be returned to their midst shall be such 
as to give reasonable ground for hope that they T will return better, not 
worse, for their imprisonment. Such is not, "however, the case with 
respect to life-sentenced prisoners. The public sees these persons, as 
soon as their sentence is pronounced, removed forever from among 
them. They will never again take their place in society. They may even 
be regarded, and are so by law in some countries, as absolutely dead to 
the world. The nature of their subsequent life is quite unknown to the 
public, who cannot intrude on the secrets of the prison house; they 
cannot make their voice heard to tell of the misery they endure; they 
will never go forth to say what they have suffered. But the present age 
requires that the treatment of such persons should be the subject of 
very special consideration, for the number of them will be continually 
increasing, as the barbarous death-penalty disappears from the code of 
civilization. It is disappearing , and must continue to do so, as education 
brings enlightenment with it, and the public mind comprehends the true 
ends of punishment. The gibbets placed conspicuously on a high hill 
to scare evil-doers with the sight of decaying corpses are molclering 
away, and stand only as beacons to mark the progress of society. In 


TREATMENT OF LIFE-SENTENCED PRISONERS. 349 

Great Britain, which unhappily still lingers, the ghastly spectacle of 
an execution is no longer paraded before the public, but is hidden in a 
horrible seclusion; in a neighboring country the continual legal mas¬ 
sacres which are still appalling distant lands have not yet ceased to 
render the public mind callous, if it is not anguished, by their frequent 
occurrence. We shall aid the abolition of this inhuman punishment, if 
we can point out a way in which the ends of justice can be served with¬ 
out it. 

It is, then, the object of the present paper to consider the difference 
which exists between life-sentenced and ordinary convicts; next, to con¬ 
sider the principles which should guide us in their treatment; and 
dually we shall endeavor to show how these principles may be practi¬ 
cally developed. 

For this inquiry we shall not consider separately long-sentenced and 
life-sentenced prisoners, because when the certain term of detention 
reaches fifteen years, or even less, the uncertainty of life, and the 
knowledge of the changes which must have taken place in all ties of 
family and friendship, even if liberty is eventually obtained, renders 
the dreary future as appalling as if it were certain that death alone will 
release the unhappy prisoner. We shall therefore here speak only of 
“life-sentenced prisoners.” 

Now, when we consider the treatment of ordinary convicts, we regard 
them generally as habitual criminals, such being usually the persons 
sentenced to a term of years in a convict prison. The cases in which 
persons are so sentenced for a first offense are exceptional ones. The 
ordinary convict may be thus described : The habitual offenders who 
constitute the largest proportion of the inmates of convict prisons are 
in a state of absolute antagonism to society and disregard of ordi¬ 
nances, human and divine. They are usually hardened in vice, and 
they concern themselves with the law only to endeavor to evade it. 
They dislike labor of all kinds, and to supply their own wants exert 
themselves only by preying on the property of others. They are self- 
indulgent, low in their desires, ignorant of all knowledge that would 
profit them, and skillful only in accomplishing their own wicked purposes. 
Such is not necessarily the case with life-sentenced prisoners. The 
crime for which this sentence is inflicted is commonly murder, and this 
crime involves very different degrees of criminality in the several cases, 
and does not indicate in itself the type of character usually found in 
the convict prisons. At the same time it shows a mental and physical 
condition most dangerous to society. 

Now, in the treatment of both classes of these criminals the same 
grand objects should guide us—the protection of society, the mini¬ 
mizing of crime, and the reformation of the offender. It has been 
shown in the Crofton system of prison discipline how all these may be 
harmoniously combined. But it is the great aim of ordinary reforma- 
tory prison discipline to restore the offenders to society and to obliterate, 
if possible, the memory of his crime by the entire change in his future 
life. In effecting this reformation hope forms a most important element 
of treatment, and the daily effort to attain the desired result of the 
remission of sentence, with other advantages to be enjoyed, especially 
the attainment of liberty, constitutes the most valuable part of prison 
training. But in the case of the life-sentenced prisoner, supposing the 
crime to be murder or some other horrible offense, the memory of it 
can never be effaced, though repentance may draw a veil before it’; 
society will never receive him again, however penitent; no efforts of his 
can obtain his release; and hope, the grand spring of human action, is 


350 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


withdrawn from him. The condition of mind in which he is therefore 
necessarily plunged is one which must render him a burden to himself 
and a dangerous associate for others. Then, again, the ordinary con¬ 
vict is probably not in general much tormented by the reproaches of 
conscience. It is hot until he has made considerable progress in 
reformation that he can see in its true colors the evils of his past life 
and feel remorse for it. But the crimes which receive the award of 
confinement for life are usually of a kind at which human nature revolts 
when not under the immediate thraldom of violent passion. The secret 
anguish of remorse so truly described by our own Shakespeare, in his 
Lady Macbeth, must constitute a source of life-misery. 

The first murderer, when informed that his life would be spared, 
exclaimed in the agony of his spirit, “My punishment is greater than 1 
can bear.” And the same has been felt by others who, under commuta¬ 
tion of sentence, have found the pangs of a guilty conscience in a con¬ 
vict prison more than they could bear, and have committed suicide. 
Again, the ordinary condition of habitual criminals may be calculated 
on, and a system of discipline may be arranged for them accordingly. 
But the crimes which are followed by a life-sentence are very frequently 
regarded as symptoms of insanity, either temporary or the result of 
unbridled passions which have destroyed the mental equilibrium; they 
require special treatment, and for want of any such provision are placed, 
in a criminal lunatic asylum, though in no other respect than the crime 
they had committed did they show indications of mental aberration. 

It is evident, then, that these two classes of convicts are totally distinct, 
and require a kind of treatment of a very different nature. The very 
presence of one class with the other is injurious. Every one conversant 
with prison management is fully aware that the mixture of short-sen¬ 
tenced prisoners with convicts is detrimental to the discipline and order 
of a jail \ the difficulty is not less wLich is caused by the presence of life- 
sentenced prisoners, who require, and who ought to have, very different 
treatment from ordinary convicts. There ought to he a separate place, in 
every country , where life sentenced prisoners can he placed to receive appro¬ 
priate treatment. 

Let us now consider what are the principles which should guide us 
in our treatment of them. 

First. There must be protection to society from any danger aris¬ 
ing from the escape of such prisoners. Security is always a very 
important element in penal discipline, and in this case especially so. 
The dreadful tragedy by which India was recently deprived of her 
illustrious viceroy ought never to have taken place. A known mur¬ 
derer, however mild may have been his general demeanor, should never 
have had the possibility of escaping from surveillance, and availing 
himself of deadly weapons, especially at a time of peculiar excitement. 
No one can tell what are the secret workings in the murderer’s heart, or 
the craft with which he can conceal them. The protection of society is 
of course an important object in all penal discipline, but in this case es¬ 
pecially. 

Secondly. The deterrent effect on society of the treatment of these life- 
sentenced prisoners exists solely in the fact of their removal forever from 
the world. The special treatment must be regulated not only so as to 
secure the personal safety of the prisoner, but at the same time to pro¬ 
mote his reformation, as a primary object. 

Thirdly. With a view to this last object, the whole system must be so 
arranged in its differerent parts as to infuse the element of hope into the 
prisoner from the very commencement of his incarceration. The awful 


TREATMENT OF LIFE-SENTENCED PRISONERS. 351 

sentence, “ Who enters here, leaves hope behind,” placed by Dante over 
the entrance to his Inferno, must have no place here. Humble peni¬ 
tence for past evil, with deep sorrow for sin, must be blended not only 
with hope of pardoning love in another world, but also in this. Hope 
must be excited of the possibility of regaining some happiness even in this 
seclusion, and even of making some small restitution to injured society. 

In order to make myself better understood, I shall here, before stating 
"what I conceive should be the practical development of a prison for life- 
sentenced prisoners, mention two cases which came under my own ob¬ 
servation in a recent journey on the continent of Europe. 

The first case w as that of a man who was sentenced to twenty years’ 
imprisonment for murder. He was in a jail where* strict discipline on 
the Crofton system was carried out, as far as it could be in buildings 
not arranged for the purpose, and w ithout any intermediate stage. An 
excellent tone pervaded the place, and the associated labor had a very 
good influence on the prisoners, in whom, generally, there evidently existed 
a desire to do their duty. The director, a gentleman who devoted himself 
to the well-being of the prisoners and took a strong personal interest in 
them, informed mft that this man had been there for two years, and had 
eighteen more to remain; that he labored under deep and morbid de¬ 
pression of mind, from which he could not be roused; the future was dark 
and dreary before him ; it w r as not probable that he would live to regain 
his liberty; and if he did, what happiness would he have when all his 
friends would probably be dead or dispersed ? The director had tried to 
place him in associated labor to relieve the gloomy monotony of his life, 
but his irritable disposition compelled his removal from it. The director 
asked me to see him. I went to his cell, and found him as described; 
skilled labor had been provided for him, but there w as deep gloom 
around him. I addressed to him such religious observations as seemed 
appropriate to his case, and he seemed comforted. The next time I 
heard of him he was ill. The director found his presence a great diffi¬ 
culty in the management of the prison, nor could he deal with him as 
his judgment would direct, under such circumstances. 

The other case, in another city, was that of a female poisoner who 
had been confined already eighteen years. The prison where I saw her 
was a temporary one, formerly a lunatic asylum, and there did not ap¬ 
pear to be any attempt to carry out a system in the management of it. 
I w r as accompanied by a gentleman resident in the neighborhood. A 
male official introduced me to the small room where the poor woman 
was confined. She w as in a nervous, dejected state, and said she could 
not do the work, which lay untouched on her table, from a weakness 
which evidently arose from dejection. She seemed thankful for sym¬ 
pathy. She complained that she had often been accused of committing, 
in the prison, offenses of which she was innocent. She had no friends,, 
or relatives, except one son, of whom she knew nothing. It was diffi¬ 
cult to know what to say to her. After I left her, and the official had 
again confined her in her dreary solitude, we heard her singing in a 
wild, maniacal manner. My friend and I thought that immediate death 
would have been a more merciful infliction on her than this protracted 
mental torture. I did not desire to see another female prisoner in the 
same jail, who had committed many murders. A gentleman afterward 
told me that he had visited her, and found that a young woman was 
confined in the same cell with her. I requested my friend to intercede 
with the proper authorities for a mitigation of the punishment of the 
poor woman I had seen. He afterward informed me that this was use¬ 
less, as she was subject to violent paroxysms of passion, requiring sev- 


352 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

eral men to hold her. Both had done very malicious bodily injury to 
female officials. 

It will surely be acknowledged by any one who carefully considers 
these two cases, which probably are not equally painful with many 
which exist in various countries, that the abolition of capital punish¬ 
ment absolutely requires ns to consider what is the true treatment of 
such persons as those to whom it would formerly have been awarded. 
The civilized world no longer tolerates the infliction of needless physical 
pain as punishment. We shudder at the torture chamber of Nureinburg 
and the instruments of torture exhibited in our own capital, as relics of 
a barbarous age 5 yet we forget that, excruciating as was the pain then 
inflicted on the body of the sufferer, it would gladly have been chosen 
rather than years of mental anguish. We behold the dungeons of our 
ancestors, and the dens where were thrust, wholesale, the intended 
victims of the scaffold ; or the now crumbling towers where a criminal 
was immured for a short time, to be dragged forth to the place of ex¬ 
ecution. But our whitewashed cells, with their dreadful monotony, in 
which a human being is confined year after year, without hope of release, 
are not really more humane. • 

Let us now consider what should be the nature of a convict establish¬ 
ment for life-sentenced prisoners: 

Selection should in the first place be made of a proper site. The 
safety of society is a primary consideration, and the more secure is the 
locality the less need will there be for those irksome restrictions which 
irritate the prisoner, and constantly remind him of his situation. If possi¬ 
ble, an island should be selected, or, better still, two or three islands, suffi¬ 
ciently near to each other to be within one general surveillance. The 
choice of the locality should not be guided by the desire to make the 
residence there as unpleasant as possible, but, by adaptation to the object, 
to secure the reformation of the prisoner. Barren, frozen regions should 
not be selected, as some have proposed, where the spirit would become 
as chilled and frigid as the physical frame; nor unwholesome, tropical 
places, where the influences are so depressing that the inhabitants of 
the temperate zone must pine away and die miserably. Nor must we 
choose a rugged and desolate district, where not even bounteous nature 
repays, as is her wont, the toil of the husbandman. The loving heavenly 
Father doeth good even to the unthankful and the evil: He sendeth His 
sunshine and rain on the just and on the unjust. We are commanded to 
be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. We must strive after 
this , and it is not for us to deprive our fellow-sinners of a single good 
and holy influence which nature would bestow on them. There 
should be abundance of land, which the labor of the convicts could make 
highly productive. Such a site should be sufficiently isolated, and yet 
not so remote as to prevent the frequent visits of persons whose influ¬ 
ence would be beneficial. 

The whole territory should be so arranged as to admit of three distinct 
stages, as on the Crofton system ; prisons for separate confinement, for 
associated labor, and for partial liberty, as in the Crofton intermediate 
prisons. Besides these there should be a fourth stage , corresponding to 
liberty with the ordinary convict. Here there should be little, except 
the actual fact of prohibition to pass a certain boundary, which should 
remind the reformed convict, who has attained it, that he is still under 
sentence of law. The space should be sufficiently large for the life- 
sentenced prisoner to have his family around him. Bemunerative 
labor should be provided, by wdiich he might be able to relieve society 
from the expense of his support, and even to repay what has been spent 


TREATMENT OF LIFE-SENTENCED PRISONERS. 353 

on him. He might also be permitted to make some provision for his 
family, and prepare them for their free entrance on life. 

It will be remembered that in Sir Walter Crofton’s development of 
his system in Ireland, the only complete illustration of it existing , each 
stage was at some distance from the others, while his own mind kept all 
in unity. This was attended with very beneficial effects, as at each 
stage the mind of the prisoner received a new stimulus. This is even 
more desirable in the case under consideration, where every available 
stimulus and excitement should be used to supply the place of that 
great object of desire, the anticipation of release which has been with¬ 
drawn. 

While the general arrangements of the Orofton system should be adopted 
in these prisons for life-sentenced prisoners, the stages may be passed 
through more rapidly, and more privileges may be allowed as the result 
of good conduct, such as communication with friends, and the purchase 
of small articles which may relieve the monotony of the cell. There 
should also be very careful and scientific medical superintendence of 
the whole. The mind and the body have much to do with each other, 
and in such cases particularly. 

At Ahmedabad, in India, I saw a very remarkable lunatic asylum, 
conducted by Dr. Wyllie, the able superintendent of the jail of that 
place. ISTever have I seen a more pleasing spectacle of willing, cheer¬ 
ful out-door labor than among the patients of that institution; they 
were not only earning money but bringing their physical and mental 
powers into harmonious action. Among these the doctor pointed out 
to me a class of murderers who were working in as orderly a way as the 
others. The doctor observed them carefully and regularly, and when 
he saw in any one of them a peculiar appearance of the eye, he put him 
under medical treatment, and the danger of an outbreak was removed. 

The development of such a convict system for life and long-sentenced 
prisoners in the Andaman Islands was regarded as very satisfactory, 
when I had the opportunity of making inquiries respecting it, six years 
ago. The fourth stage was on a separate island, where the convicts 
lived in comparative freedom. Many convict women were sent out at 
their own request to become their wives, and the settlement appeared 
fully to realize the object intended. 

The best treatment of life-sentenced women is a problem more diffi¬ 
cult of solution than that of men. The subject is too perplexing and 
important to be here briefly discussed. Suffice it to say that Sir \\alter 
Orofton has proved that it can be solved, and it ought to be considered 
most carefully in every country. I trust it will receive the attention 
it requires from those women as well as men whose sound knowledge , large 
experience , and devoted , loving hearts , inspire them with a faith which can 
remove mountains. 

If there are persons who have so little belief in the possibility of 
overcoming evil with good, of touching the divine spirit which exists 
in every child of the heavenly Father, however perverted and en¬ 
thralled by the animal nature and passions, we would ask them to turn 
for confirmation of the views taken in this paper to a convict settle¬ 
ment in the center of India. It is well known that in that country 
there was a race of natives, the Thugs, whose very religion aud social 
customs were based on professional murder, the secret of which was 
transmitted from father to son, and the practice was thus perpetuated 
from one generation to another. To reform them seemed impossible. The 
practice formed so completely a part of their nature that when suffer¬ 
ing under punishment they would declare that, whenever released, they 

H. Ex. 185-23 


354 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


must resume tlie horrid practice. Some forty years ago these Thugs, 
whenever arrested, were subjected to strict imprisonment and industrial 
training in a place appointed for them. As they appeared reformed 
they were admitted to greater liberty, and a village was formed round 
them, where their families live. Breach of regulations was at once 
punished with return to strict imprisonment. Various branches of 
skilled labor have been introduced into this Thug village, at Jubbed- 
poor, which are now of great importance in a commercial point of 
view. An excellent influence has been diffused around, and some of 
those who were born and bred in jail are now among the first and 
wealthiest in the community. Why should not the same be done for 
our life-sentenced prisoners ? 

3. Remarks on sundry topics considered in the international 

PENITENTIARY CONGRESS OF LONDON: 

By the Bight Eon. Sir Walter Crofton , England. 

My Dear Dr. Wines : I regret very much that it is not in my power 
to attend the Baltimore Congress. I need scarcely write that I wish it 
every possible success. I have been ill for several months, and therefore 
have been unable to attend the Social Science Congress at Plymouth, or 
to initiate the further discussions which I consider to be necessary with 
regard to the u International Prison Congress.” 

It is undeniable that this congress, thanks to your energy, ability, 
and, allow me to add, tact , proved a very great success. It contained 
elements of discord which might have produced the result of separating 
without passing any resolutions. It must be our care that those which 
have been passed should be thoroughly understood. 

Already I see indications that the advocates for strict separation until 
the end of long sentences do not consider that any resolution has been 
passed by the congress hostile to their opinions. But, if the resolution 
recommending the adoption of “progressive classification ” is not opposed 
to these opinions I am entirely at a loss to conceive its meaning. 

To my mind, the tone of the discussions abundantly illustrated that 
the problem to be solved was not merely the question between u isola¬ 
tion ” and “ progressive classification,” which had been disposed of at 
an early period,* but the best mode of preparing a criminal for his re¬ 
lease, so that on his liberation he should, by his prison training , be made 
fit for the labor market, and employers of labor be induced to assist 
him. 

You will, I know, agree with me that if our prison training does not 
attain these ends it has accomplished but a small portion of its real 
work. 

I have listened to many advocates of the system of entire isolation, 
and have read many of their works; moreover, I have noted its results 
where carried out for lengthened periods, both in England and in Ire¬ 
land, but I have entirely failed to realize how it would be possible 
under any artificial system to attain the all-important ends to which I 
have alluded. 

I fully recognize the value of the isolated system from many points of 
view. The absence of temptations would reduce the number of prison 
offenses, and render the management of the establishments much easier, 
and far more agreeable to the officers. The small number of prison of- 


*In the United Kingdom, after much experience, “ isolation” for long periods of time 
has been condemned for many years. 






CORPOREAL PUNISHMENT AND PENAL LABOR. 


355 


ficers, and the general good conduct of prisoners, will of course induce 
the assumption that amendment has taken place, which, without the test 
of registration and supervision after liberation, it will be impossible to 
verify. 

I have for too many years struggled with the difficulty of rendering 
criminals fit for the labor market and inducing employers to give them 
work, to believe that this great object can be attained by any artificial 
process in the criminal training. In some communities doubtless there 
will not be the same difficulty as in others, but in all, to a greater or 
lesser degree, difficulties will exist. In the United Kingdom, I feel 
perfectly satisfied that any attempt to liberate men after a long period of 
isolation , with the hope of their attaining employment, would result in 
a most disastrous failure. 

But do not let me be supposed to undervalue “isolation” in its place . 
As the earliest stage of detention, I have the highest opinion of its im¬ 
portance. I believe every system of prison discipline would fail with¬ 
out this preliminary stage for reflection, so specially well adapted as it 
is for repentance and religious instruction. It should be qver held to be 
the basis of all prison systems. 

You will, I feel sure, agree with me that the great pressure upon the 
time of the congress, caused principally by the translation, of the 
papers and discussions, precluded the thorough consideration and dis¬ 
cussion which some of the subjects imperatively required. Kotably there 
were two subjects, “corporal punishment,” introduced by M. Stevens, 
of Belgium, and “ prison labor,” by Mr. F. Hill; the arguments con¬ 
cerning which were based upon a complete misunderstanding of the 
system pursued in this country, and approved by the Government. The 
names of twelve or fourteen gentlemen were down as desirous of speak¬ 
ing when the discussion was closed by the chairman. 

From want of knowledge of the existing practice, the. arguments 
were based on exceptional cases, and went upon a false issue. Under 
these circumstances, the feeling at the congress was extremely hostile 
both to the infliction of corporal punishment and to some of the 
statutory requirements of hard labor, viz, the crank, treadwheel, and 
shot-drill. Members of the congress spoke as if these were our ordinary 
forms of punishment and of labor. But what are the facts ? 

Corporal punishment is retained as a very exceptional and not an 
ordinary punishment, and is never resorted to save in cases in which a 
most brutalized nature lias been evinced by the offender, and theh only 
by magisterial order accompanied by medical sanction. It is not true 
that it is in the power of governors of jails to order its infliction, and 
those conversant with the ordinary practice of the magistracy in these 
cases will be amazed at some of the opinions expressed in the con¬ 
gress. 

There is no person with an opinion carrying weight who would in 
this country advocate the general use of corporal punishment. At the 
same time there would be very few of practical experience but would 
desire the retention of the power uuder the strictest safeguards, to be 
applicable only to those exceptional and brutalized natures which will, 
unfortunately, be sometimes found in all communities. It is believed, 
and rightly believed, that the retention of the power prevents in many 
cases the necessity for its use. It has in several instances prevented 
bloodshed and murdey to my knowledge; and you will recollect state¬ 
ments being made to the congress to this effect by Dr. Mouat, (the in¬ 
spector-general of prisons in Bengal for many years,) and by your own 


356 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


very able and excellent governor of Albany penitentiary, General Pils- 
bury. 

With regard to “ prison labor,” there was very much misapprehen¬ 
sion also. The prevalent impression of speakers appeared to be that 
the use of the crank, shot-drill, and the treadwheel is compulsory by 
statute. This is not true; it is optional with the magistrates either to 
adopt these forms of labor or others of a character to insure “ hard 
bodily labor.” It had been decided by Parliament that before 1865 the 
sentences of “hard labor” had not been carried out in our prisons, and 
that so long as we maintained these sentences we must recognize a dis¬ 
tinction between “penal” and “industrial” labor. 

But the government never contemplated “hard” or “penal” labor to 
the bitter end. So far from this being the case, the home office trans¬ 
mitted circulars to the “prison authorities,” pointing out how it would 
be possible, under the prisons act, 1865, to establish a prison system 
which should lead from penal or hard labor, by a progressive classifica¬ 
tion, to industrial labor and special employments. 

Thus, by a well-regulated system, justice would have been satisfied, 
a strong motive-power to amendment would have been created, and 
“industrial labor,” being associated with privilege in the minds of the 
criminals, would be followed on liberation with pleasure and with profit. 

A large number of “prison authorities” have, unfortunately, not 
adopted the scheme foreshadowed in the government circular, and 
allow the infliction of “hard labor” until the end of long sentences. 
Nothing can be worse than such a course. But it would be entirely 
wrong to assume that the government approves of such a practice, 
as many speakers at the congress did assume, and termed it the “Eng¬ 
lish prison system,” for we have only to turn to the convict system, 
which is under the entire control of the government, to learn its views 
upon the subject of criminal treatment. 

What is required is, that the central authority should institute a uni¬ 
form system of prison treatment, working it out with the co-operation 
of local action, and we must come to this; as yet, there is not sufficient 
power. 

It is, I maintain, right for the public, and right for the criminal him¬ 
self, that there should be suffering for sin, that the preliminary period 
of imprisonment should be one of suffering, not dictated by vengeance, 
but as an example toothers, and a wholesome discipline to the criminal. 

Whether this period of suffering had better be one of strict isolation 
or of “ hard labor” is an open question. If hard-labor sentences could 
be abolished, I should myself prefer isolation. But in either case this 
treatment must be followed by industrial labor, which must be earned 
as a privilege. If the whole scope of such a system is explained to the 
criminal, it is idle to assume that he would consider penal labor as a 
degradation. He would realize it as a means to an end, and would co¬ 
operate with the system. This has been the case in jails which have a 
progressive system, and it is not right to assume that because aimless 
penal labor in jails whieh have no progressive system is felt as a deg¬ 
radation, it must be so under other and very different circumstances. 
It is important, all-important I would say, to keep penal or hard labor 
perfectly distinct from “industrial labor” in the mind of the criminal, 
for it is necessary that he should dislike the one as associated with pun¬ 
ishment, and like the other as associated with privilege and amend¬ 
ment. His well-doing, on liberation, depends upon his feeling in this 
respect; and those who advocate “industrial labor” at the beginning of 
sentences, without making it the result of privilege, are associating it 


PUNISHMENT AND SUFFERING NOT TO BE ELIMINATED. 357 

in the mind of the criminal with his penal treatment, and giving him a 
distaste for it on his liberation. Many years 7 experience has completely 
satisfied me on this point, and many years 7 experience should have 
pointed out the failure of merely industrial labor in England. Before 
1865, it was quite au exception to find jails in which penal labor was 
carried out—the results were so bad as to call for an examination by 
a committee of the House of Lords, the report of which gave rise to the 
prisons act, 1865. It is notorious that under the former system vagrants 
used to commit crime to pass the winter in jail, and this has not been 
the case since penal labor, (which should not be unproductive,) has been 
made compulsory in ail jails. 

I am satisfied that any attempt to eliminate suffering from punish¬ 
ment would have such an effect upon public opinion as to very ma¬ 
terially damage, if not entirely destroy, our reformatory and progres¬ 
sive system. No one has a greater right to be heard upon this point 
than myself, because I have carried the progressive system further than 
any other person, even to a state of semi-freedom. But this would 
have been impossible, had I not been able to carry public opinion with 
me, and to show—as Count Cavour expressed it—that punishment 
and suffering formed a portion of the system. Experience has also 
shown me that such a course is an essential element in the treatment of 
the criminal for his own sake. 

It is certain that we have much yet to do. Our classification must 
be perfected and still further extended. Our education in prisons must 
be rendered more practical, and made to bear more on the future career 
of the criminal. Above all things, we must have the active interven¬ 
tion of a central authority to compel a uniform system of prison disci¬ 
pline. It is indefensible, that the exercise of an unchecked local au¬ 
thority should be allowed to result in a very different treatment of 
criminals under the same sentences, for the whole community is affected 
by this treatment. We cannot confine the action of criminals to their 
own localities, and, therefore, it is the duty of the state to interfere. 

With regard to sentences, also, some reform is needed. It is very 
generally admitted that short sentences entirely preclude reformatory 
treatment, for the time is not sufficiently long to develop it. If we 
could abolish the intermediate sentences between six weeks and six 
months, it would be far better for the criminal and the public. During 
six weeks we could inflict isolation and a low diet for the whole term. 
From six months and upward we could give beneficial effect to a pro¬ 
gressive and reformatory system. 

Although we have done much of late in establishing Prisoners 7 Aid 
Societies,* we have still much more to do in this direction. 

Our “ registration of criminals and their supervision after liberation, 77 
has not only proved a most efficient check on the criminal classes, but it 
has enabled us to test, in the only practicable manner, the value of our 
prison training. Under this test we have the most satisfactory results. 

Criminal statistics depend for their value upon the basis on which 
they are collected. 

Any comparison of statistics between different countries, some col¬ 
lected under a stringent system of registration, as in the United King¬ 
dom, and others in a negative form, would be worse than useless as 
tests of prison system. By turning to my Irish official reports, it will 
be noted that this was my argument against any comparison of results 
between England and Ireland, for at that time “supervision and regis- 


There are now thirty-six in England. 



358 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


tration of criminals 77 had not been adopted in England. When I think 
of those reports, and the papers I had to write, pleading (for it was 
nothing short of pleading) for the adoption of the “mark 77 system of 
classification, for police supervision, for the registration of habitual 
criminals, for a reduction in the amount of gratuities, which were ex¬ 
cessive, and for a better subdivision of large prisons, and realize what 
has since been done, that is, the adoption of all the improvements men¬ 
tioned, you will agree with me that I have reason to be thankful. It is 
cheering also to find that the mark system has been introduced in some 
of the jails in India and the colonies, and that Germany has introduced 
a well-considered system of supervising criminals. 

We must hope and believe that progressive classification will every¬ 
where culminate in “ intermediate establishments. 77 We can make al¬ 
lowance for a certain timidity in its application to men, but they will 
come in time as a consequence of the progress which has been already 
attained. Surely Lusk, with its sixteen years of successful results, 
cannot be ignored by thinking men, and that it will not be so ignored 
in the United States, I feel most certain. 

It cannot be doubted that we have much yet to do. But we must 
stand fast to the principles which we have proved to be sound, and 
build upon them ; we must not confine our operations to the treatment 
of criminals, young or old, inside and outside of the prisons; and we 
must place in industrial schools the children of criminals whose future 
career cannot otherwise admit of doubt. 

With my best wishes for your congress, believe me, dear Dr. Wines, 
yours, most sincerely, 

WALTER CROFTOH. 

Hillingdon, Uxbridge, December 24,1872. 

P. S.—I have just received the Transactions of the Prison Congress. 
Hot having seen a proof of any statement made by me, I already ob¬ 
serve an error on a very important point, which I shall feel obliged by 
your correcting at the Baltimore Congress. At page 47G, I am reported 
as stating that, for certain reasons, viz, the high earnings in free life in 
England, it would be difficult to carry out intermediate prisons in this 
country. This would be nonsense. What I said was, that I had no 
doubt the English prison authorities had this difficulty to contend with 
in establishing intermediate prisons, viz, that several of the prisoners 
(who are skilled) earn in some of the public works prisons 5s. or 6s. a 
day, and that if they were removed to agricultural establishments, as at 
Lusk, they would probably only earn 2s. 6d. a day. But I stated that, 
to my mind, the moral gain would quite outweigh the financial result, 
and I shall be glad if you will make this point very clear. 

W. C. 

4. Preparatory school for the training of officers con¬ 
nected WITH THE PENITENTIARY COLONY OF METTRAY, FRANCE : 

By M. De Metz , Director of the Colony. 

[Translation.] 

Paris, December 31, 1872. 

Dear Sir: Agreeably to your request, I send you a word in relation 
to the Preparatory School, (Bcole Preparatoire ,) which I thought it 
needful to found some time in advance of the rece tion of the first in¬ 
mates of the Penitentiary Agricultural Colony of Mettray, for the pur¬ 
pose of training agents who should be competent to the duties of their 


M. DE METZ ON THE EDUCATION OF PRISON OFFICERS. 359 

high mission. This, from the start, I thought absolutely essential, to 
the end that I might advance, with firm and sure step, m a path then 
altogether new and untried. 

It is thirty-five years since the preparatory school was founded, and 
time has but convinced me more and more of the advantages which 
may be obtained by means of such au institution. Still more recently 
I have had opportunity to observe how much force and energy this 
school has given to the sentiments of the young men who have enjoyed 
its advantages. When our territory was lately invaded by the enemy, 
many of our under-officers promptly joined the ranks of the army. Those 
who remained, perceiving the difficult position in which we found our¬ 
selves from the insufficiency of our staff, and being fully aware of the 
exhaustion of our financial resources, resulting from" the crushing 
requisitions of which we had been made the object, sent a deputation 
to me to say: u We comprehend, sir, how great must be your embar¬ 
rassment; it will cost us no sacrifice to relieve you from it; pay us half 
of what we now receive, and we will do double work.” I accepted their 
generous offer, and Mettray came victorious out of a trial so menacing 
to the future of the colony. Would such devotion have been found in 
men taken, as it were, hap hazard, which is but too often the case iu 
penitentiary establishments, and who had not early imbibed the senti¬ 
ment and formed the habit of duty ? 

It has been said, with reason, that there is no good penitentiary system 
without aid to discharged prisoners; so there is no good penitentiary 
establishment, which does not create a nursery of agents from which to 
recruit its staff*. The men who are needed to implant the love of good¬ 
ness in vicious natures are not improvised, and moral transformations 
are obtained only through persevering efforts and an enlightened zeal. 

May these considerations, which I venture to lay before you, serve to 
convince you of my desire to justify a confidence which honors me. Be 
pleased, sir, to receive, in exchange, the assurance of my high esteem 
and sincere sympathy. 

Yours, from the depth of my heart, 

DE METZ. 

5. Susceptibility of criminals to reformatory agencies : 

By Henry James Anderson , M. I). 

Dear Sir: The board of managers of the Protectory desire me to 
thank you for your invitation to them to participate, through an appro¬ 
priate delegation, in the good work proposed for the Prison Reform 
Congress, soon to assemble at Baltimore. 

As the Rev. William Quinn, our advisory chaplain, Brother Teliow, 
our rector and superintendent at Westchester, and the Hon. John E. 
Develin, our legal adviser, have been delegated to represent us in the 
congress, they will be prepared to furnish all the detailed information 
called for by your respective points of inquiry. I venture, however, of 
my own responsibility, to state the result of some attention to your 
eleventh point, viz: the susceptibility of criminals to reformatory 
agencies. 

It is essentially necessary in this matter, if we wish to avoid a painful 
confusion of ideas, to discriminate in the very outset, at least two 
classes of convicts—those whose crimes have, on the whole, been justly 
defined by the verdict, and those whose delinquencies, if any, have been 
very inadequately represented by the finding of the jury or the judge. 
The penal discipline appropriate to the former class would be hurtful in 


360 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


the extreme if applied to the latter, whether the verdict overstated, un¬ 
derstated, or misstated entirely the nature and magnitude of the offense. 
I do not mean to say that it would be safe for the prison authorities to 
question the correctness of the finding; but it is nevertheless true that 
a severity of treatment, promotive of the ends of justice in the one 
case, would be totally ineffectual, not to say ruinous, in its results in 
the other. To save time, I shall therefore confine these remarks to the 
first class of convicts, those whose crimes shall have been found to con¬ 
form in the main with the language of their condemnation. 

It has been customary to say that the end of punishment is twofold: 
first, to reform the offender; secondly, to deter from a like offense the 
thoughtless or the criminally inclined. The treatment of the trans¬ 
gressor should keep a third end in view, the maintenance of a healthy 
public opinion, not merely in regard to the gravity of the infractions of 
the law, but equally so with respect to the necessity of fair dealing in 
enforcing its provisions. All schemes for the reform of the criminal 
would be more or less incomplete if these considerations are disre¬ 
garded ; but as the eleventh inquiry concerns exclusively the reforma* 
tion of the criminal, I shall confine myself to this single point. 

What constitutes the criminal? Crime implies either a false sense of 
duty or disobedience to a true one. As against the state, it implies a 
culpable ignorance of the law or a wilful breach of it. How far there 
may be crime in obedience to the law or innocence in disobedience, it 
would perhaps be irrelevant to inquire. To reform the criminal it is at 
all events necessary that we should reform either his erroneous convic¬ 
tions or his proclivity to disobey his right ones. Ordinarily speaking, 
all true reform demands, on the part of the reformer, a disposition and 
ability to accomplish one or other of these tasks; and on the part of 
the transgressor a disposition and ability to look to the moral teacher 
as his counselor and friend. No real amendment can be hoped for 
where this relation is not substantially established. The criminal must 
have for his reformer one whom he actually trusts and respects , one whom 
he believes means well ,. even when the treatment seems severe. So true 
is this that where this condition is wanting, no amount of benevolence 
or zeal on the part of the instructor can make up for the defect. All 
the devices of mere physical appliance, so idly relied upon as efficacious 
and so often invoked as miraculous or infallible in their effects, are 
worse than nothing where they work upon an adverse will. In the great 
majority of cases they serve only to harden the offender, who is in fact 
logical in his contempt of such expedients, as they are in no way calcu¬ 
lated to remove his false beliefs or to inspire him with loyalty to true 
ones. This is the secret of a trusted mother’s influence. This, and 
this alone, can explain the acknowledged failure of so many well meant 
schemes of reform, though sustained by the subsidies of the wealthiest 
states and the cheers of a world of blinded applauders. 'The unhappy 
wanderer who has gone far astray must believe in his guide, or he will 
not follow him; he will not even listen to him, aud if the unwelcome 
educator resorts to the use of force and comes to grief in the encounter, 
the sympathy of the stander-by is very sure to be on the side of the un¬ 
persuaded one, whatever be the style of his resistance. 

It would, however, be wrong to say that punishment has not its uses, 
or to assert that it can never tend to the true correction of the vicious 
habits of the offender. Even where punishment but confirms the crim¬ 
inal in his perverseness, it may be necessary as a part of penal disci¬ 
pline. Nevertheless, on every occasion of this sort the difference is 
immense in results between the system of correction which is appre- 


SUSCEPTIBILITY OF CRIMINALS TO REFORMATION. 361 


bended by its subjects as coming from a respected authority , and tliat 
more popular off-liand dealing with delinquents which regards the dis¬ 
gust of the refractory impenitent as a i>leasing feature in this less scru¬ 
pulous method of conversion. 

Where the puuishers (justly or not, makes little difference) are re¬ 
garded by the punished as belonging to an order, unsympathizing at 
least, if not absolutely hostile or unfriendly, it is clear that, under such 
circumstances, the subject of the most necessary discipline will miscon¬ 
strue the motives and passionately resent the acts of his correctors. 
And those who are intended to be warned by these corrections will find 
all sense of their necessity lost in the sense of their injustice. On the 
contrary, in reformatories where fhe inmates (whether for offenses com¬ 
mitted before or after confinement) are assured, by evidence or tokens 
with which they have been previously impressed and familiar, that they 
are in the hands and subject to the discipline of friends, they will cheer¬ 
fully submit to any measure of coercion deemed necessary, either for 
their individual correction, or for the maintenance of the general order 
of the house. 

In offering these remarks I wish to be understood irrespectively of 
the special merits of the class of reformers which may have previously 
gained the confidence of the class to be reformed. For the same reason 
which insists that the child is safer, on the whole, with an indiscreet or 
over-indulgent mother than with a guardian, however gifted, having no 
acquired or natural affection for her ward, so it may be assumed that 
the state will fail of securing the proper training of its delinquent chil¬ 
dren, whether juvenile or adult, if it neglects to see that each class of 
these unfortunates is committed to the care of their trusted spiritual 
protectors. Whether this sympathetic tie be one of nationality, or lan¬ 
guage, or manners, or religious convictions, or even of mere ritual forms, 
there is more safety in consulting this affinity than in defying its re¬ 
quirements. Of course there is nothing in this statement that would 
oblige us to extend it to classes sanctioning or seconding the vices de¬ 
signed to be reformed. The state has a right to require that the guard¬ 
ians, while they show how much they love the persons of their wards, 
are the determined enemies of their faults. And to this end, no class or 
sect of reformators or protectors should ask to be relieved from giving 
proof that they have ever made war against the special misdemeanors 
which have consigned these special offenders to their care. Subject to 
the strictest scrutiny in this regard, the cure of vices or vicious habits 
of thought might be left (with hopes of success far exceeding what has 
hitherto been achieved) to those who are prompted by love and enabled 
by early intimate relations to cure the infirmities and amend the lives 
of their pupils, and even to eradicate the false maxims and dangerous 
theories of right by which the criminal is ever attempting to justify his 
fault. 

I repeat again, I have no wish in this argument to present any claim 
of superiority of method on the part of any school of reform. 1 know 
of none so admittedly superior as to justify the placing of disaffected 
subjects under its control. Least of all do I wish to see all classes of 
transgressors, widely differing in their early prepossessions, brought, as 
they often are, indiscriminately under the only prison reform party 
which aspires to the exclusive favor of the state; I mean that party 
(professedly against discriminations) which itself discriminates against 
all influence derived from considerations of superhuman or supernatural 
control. 

Nor am I any more disposed to see violators of the law, with con- 


362 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


sciences as divergent as their crimes, with inbred convictions, settled 
maxims, and cherished delusions as various as their faces or their names, 
driven helplessly to that most hopeless of moral disciplines, the hearing 
(under constant and angry protest) of the vapid platitudes of any short- 
creeded and narrow-minded sect that plumes itself upon being no sect, 
but rather an enemy of all. Far better than this expedient (the most 
distasteful and the most illogical of any yet tried) is the method of 
classifying, as far as practicable, the erring children of crime, and of 
bringing daily each separate class, even if in the main they live 
together, under .the influence of the teaching which alone they can 
profitably understand. To say nothing of the generous rivalry which 
might thus be kindled and sustained, the real experience of the world is 
in its favor, for no success has as yet attended the novel experiment of 
turning religion out of doors, or the other equally novel one of leaving to 
the state the choice of a prison creed, and the selection of a catechism 
the best adapted to contradictory beliefs. If the state abandons, as it 
ought to do, all attempt to discriminate for or against any religious teach¬ 
ing in its reformatory institutions, let it apply the subsidies it now re¬ 
quires in order that “no particular religion” shall be heard by those 
who need it most, to the support of as many charities as will be raised 
in its aid, by those who wish to reach the hearts and consciences of the 
unfortunates of their own special faith. 

Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Gentile, followers of a church which 
knows no change, or adherents of views which have no continuity or 
rest, let our prisoned children be educated by their own spiritual 
mothers; and where they are orphaned by the absence of any such ma¬ 
ternal influence, in the name of mercy and humanity permit them (if 
young) to be taught as their natural guardians may prefer, and (if adult) 
let them freely give their hearing where they give their hearts, without 
restriction or dictation from the state, which has never ceased to re¬ 
affirm the American principle that, in such selections, the civil power has 
neither competency nor jurisdiction, nor even a desire to interfere. 

With great respect, I remain, yours, &c., 

HENRY JAS. ANDERSON, 

President New York Cath.-Prot. Office , 29 Reade street , 

Neio York. January 18, 1873. 

Rev. Dr. E. C. Wines, 

No. 194 Broadwav . 


6. Duty of society to persons arrested but not yet brought 

TO TRIiL: 


By Wm. J. Mullen , prison agent, Philadelphia. 

Philadelphia, January 11, 1873. 

Respected sir : Your favor of the circular informing me of the time 
for the assembling of the Prison Reform Congress at Baltimore, on the 
21 st instant, has been received, and for which you will please accept my 
thanks. I am sorry to state that circumstances beyond my control will 
prevent me from being present at the congress, i heartily approve of 
the object, and am quite sure that good results will follow the delibera¬ 
tions and action of the congress. It cannot be otherwise. The united 
efforts of the wise and good, assembled together for such a merciful ob¬ 
ject, will certainly be attended with divine blessing, that will not only 
result in accomplishing much good for unfortunate prisoners who may 
be benefited by the action of the congress, but will also prove benefi- 


UNTRIED PRISONERS NEED ATTENTION. 363 

cial to each member of the congress, who will esteem it a privilege to 
participate in so benevolent and God like a work. 

There is a subject which, I think, has not received that attention 
which its importance demanded from the different conventions that have 
heretofore met on prison reform. It is that of untried prisoners, whose 
cases should, in every instance, be thoroughly investigated by a com¬ 
petent prison agent before going to trial. Such investigations as have 
been made by myself in our Philadelphia county prison have prevented 
the conviction of thousands of persons, who might otherwise have been 
condemned without such investigations. The friendly interference of 
an intelligent and disinterested agent, in behalf of the accused, who 
may be incarcerated, friendless and helpless, and without the means 
of proving his innocence, in such cases, may result in securing his acquit¬ 
tal, by supplying him with counsel to properly explain his case to the 
court and have his witnesses present at the time of trial. All well-reg¬ 
ulated prisons (in my judgment) should have such an agent, who should 
make it his special business to do all in bis power, in a proper manner, to 
prevent improper convictions. That has been done effectually in the city 
of Philadelphia, with the unqualified approval of our highest authorities, 
from the governor down; and this, too, without impairing the adminis¬ 
tration of justice; as may be seen in the fact that our criminal judges 
are united in affording the agent every facility, in his investigations and 
labors, that is not inconsistent with justice. The court has assigned 
the agent a position inside the bar, by the side of the district-attorney; 
and in this way every opportunity is afforded the prisoner to show his 
innocence. With these facilities, the agent has succeeded in causing the 
liberation from prison of 32,474 persons within the last nineteen years. 
Of this number 2,440 persons were liberated through me during the past 
year. How many of these would have been convicted and caused to 
undergo unnecessary suffering in prison without this friendly inter¬ 
ference of the agent, is a question not easily answered. I have no doubt 
but that there would have been many thousands convicted out of the 
w 7 hole number, dating from the commencement of the agency. The 
most of these cases were settled by the agent, with the consent of all 
parties concerned, before the magistrate, without having been sent to 
court, the charges having been shown to be so frivolous as to be un¬ 
worthy of the attention of a jury. The saving in money to the tax¬ 
payers of our city, in the release of these prisoners, that would have 
been required to be paid for food while waiting in prison until the 
earliest period they could be tried, and what it would have cost to 
ignore their bills, would have been $326,112.02. I give this information 
to show T the great amount of good that may be accomplished by the in¬ 
terference of a judicious prison agent. In my judgment, you could not 
do a better thing than to bring this subject prominently before the 
prison congress for their consideration. It is a great thing to do all that 
can be done to ameliorate the condition of convict prisoners; but it is a 
much greater thing (in my judgment) to prevent an innocent man from 
becoming a convict and being made to suffer unjust imprisonment. The 
press of business in our criminal courts, and the hurried manner in which 
cases are necessarily disposed of in most instances, have been shown to 
result in the conviction of many innocent persons, whose innocence I 
have often succeeded in proving to the entire satisfaction of the court, 
after their conviction. This resulted in the reconsideration of their sen¬ 
tence and their honorable discharge from prison. 

The great cause of crime amongst us is intemperance. Nine-tenths of all 
who are committed to our prison are sent there either through intemper- 


364 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


ance in the prisoner or the person who caused him to be committed. If the 
congress would take some action on this subject it would no doubt be 
attended with good results. Of the half million of persons who have been 
committed to our county prison within the last twenty years, there have 
been about 500 committed for murder ; 700 additional for attempting to 
murder; over 40.000 for assault and battery; and over 200,000 for 
drunkenness. In nearly every case of murder, or where there was an 
attempt to murder, the parties were intoxicated. Intoxicating liquor is 
not only a great enemy to the church, but it is the great cause of suf¬ 
fering to humanity. All conventions and all good citizens should speak 
out against this crying evil, which has done so much toward filling our 
prisons, almshouses, and lunatic asylums. 

In conclusion, I would say that you are at liberty to make what use 
of this letter you (in your judgment) may think best. 

With the hope that the above information may be of some service, I 
have the honor to be, dear sir, yours, very respectfully, 

WILLIAM J. MULLEN. 

7. Intemperance and crime : 

By Aaron M. Powell , of New York. 

Among the various exciting causes of crime unquestionably the most 
prolific is the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. The testimony 
to this effect is most abundant. 

Lord Chief Justice Sir W. Bovill, an eminent English judge, writing 
to the venerable archdeacon of Coventry on the relations of intemper¬ 
ance to crime in Great Britain, says: “Amongst a large class of our 
population intemperance in early life is the direct and immediate cause 
of every kind of immorality, profligacy, and vice, and soon leads to the 
commission of crime.” 

Another eminent English jurist, Lord Chief Baron Kelly, says: “ I 
can only express my belief, indeed I may say my conviction, that two- 
thirds of the crimes which come before the courts of law in this coun¬ 
try are occasioned chiefly by intemperance.” 

Still another, the Bight Hon. Sir H. J. Keating, adds his weighty tes¬ 
timony as follows: “I should suppose the testimony of every judge 
upon the bench would be the same as to the fact that a very large pro¬ 
portion of the crimes of violence brought before us are traceable, either 
directly or indirectly, to the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors. 
In my own experience of more than nine years upon the bench, corrob¬ 
orated by a very long experience at the bar, I have no hesitation in 
saying that such is the case. Some of the saddest cases with which 
we have to deal are those in which men go into public houses respect¬ 
able and respected, and come out felons.” 

Police Magistrate Baffles, for the borough of Liverpool, says: “ The 
truth has been so universally acknowledged by all our judges of the 
superior courts, and by those who have presided over our sessions 
courts, that I can add nothing to give weight to what has been taken 
from them, viz, that drunkennes*s is the cause of nine-tenths of the 
crime which exists in this country. I can but confirm the sad con¬ 
clusion. Perhaps I have seen as much of it during the last nine or ten 
years as any one.” 

Lord Chief Justice Bovill adds to his own the following testimony, 
which I quote from the official presentment of a grand jury of Leeds : 
“The grand jury having again, as on many previous occasions, had 


INTEMPERANCE AND CRIME. 


365 


tlieir attention called to tlie large number of crimes of a serious charac¬ 
ter whose origin is traceable to beer-houses, desire to express their 
strong opinion that some alteration should be made in the existing sys¬ 
tem of licensing, with a view to place beer-houses under such super¬ 
vision as would check the evils now so grievously complained of.” 

An English prison chaplain says: “About five hundred prisoners are 
annually admitted into this prison, and I consider about four hundred 
are the victims of intemperance.” 

Another says: “ I have no doubt but that intemperance, directly or 
indirectly, is the cause of nine-tenths of the committals to prison.” 

A governor of an English prison, writing of his charge, says: “ Since 
I have been appointed to the charge of this prison I have had under 
my charge eight hundred and forty-one prisoners, and all the crimes 
have been committed when under the influence of intoxicating liquors, 
with the exception of twenty-six.” 

While in attendance upon the international prison congress, held in 
London in July, 1872, with this subject then upon my mind, I took 
occasion to consult distinguished delegates who were present from 
various countries, as also in journeying and sometimes visiting prisons 
in a somewhat extended European tour, and the testimony of all showed 
at least three-fourths, and often a much larger percentage of crime, to 
be traceable to intoxicating liquors as a primary cause. 

I will now cite briefly the testimony of a few competent witnesses as 
to our experience in this country. And first I will quote from a docu¬ 
ment published by authority of the legislature of the State of New York, 
the twentieth annual report of the executive committee of the prison 
association of New York, the following : “ There can be no doubt that 
of all the proximate sources of crime the use of intoxicating liquors is 
the most prolific and the most deadly. Of other causes it may be 
said that they slay their thousands. Of this it must be said that 
it slays its tens of thousands. The committee asked for the opinion 
of the jail officers in nearly every county in the State as to the propor¬ 
tion of commitments due either directly or indirectly to strong drink.” 
On a preceding page is the following: “Not less than sixty thousand 
to seventy thousand human beings, men, women, and children, either 
guilty or arrested on suspicion of being guilty of crime, pass every 
year through these institutions. The judgment, of these jail officers 
varied from two-thirds as the lowest estimate to nine-tenths as the 
highest, and on reducing the several proportions to an average, seven- 
eighths was the appalling result obtained.” 

The Bev. William M. Thayer, the secretary of the Massachusetts 
Temperance Alliance, in his official report for 1872, referring to the 
House of Industry, and other public institutions of Boston, says: u Of 
the total commitments to the House of Industry, for the year ending 
May 1, 1872—amounting to 4,417—all but 305 were for drunkenness, 
and offenses caused by drink. The records of the public institutions of 
the city show that 95 jier cent, of all the arrests, of late, have been for 
drunkenness, and crimes caused by intoxicating liquors.” 

Governor Washburne, of Massachusetts, still more recently, in his 
message at the opening of the legislature now in session, in referring to 
the beer-shops and the liquor question, says: “ If we are to accept the 
evidence of those who have had the most painful experience of the 
miseries produced by these places, they are among the greatest ob¬ 
stacles to the social and moral progress of the community. The testi¬ 
mony of criminals of every degree is, that they were drawn, by 
frequenting beer-houses, into offenses and violations of law of which 


•366 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


they might otherwise have remained innocent. The wise and prudent 
legislator will not cease his efforts for the diminution of crime till every 
measure has been adopted which experience proves needful.” 

I might, if the limits which I propose for this paper permitted, quote 
voluminously from the official records of the courts, State and munici¬ 
pal, of almost every State in the Union, amass of testimony, all bearing 
upon this point, and showing throughout the close connection between 
intoxicating liquors and crime. I will venture to cite the recent experi¬ 
ence of Boston in connection with the late destructive tire. In the 
great emergency created by the tire, and with a large influx of thieves 
from New York, every precaution to prevent disorder and riot became 
necessary. An edict of absolute prohibition was issued by the city 
authorities against beer and all other intoxicating liquors, which was 
in force ten days. The chief of police of Boston, E. {I. Savage, esq., 
thus testifies as to the diminution of arrests, even with the greatly 
increased liability to criminal disorder, during the ten days of prohibi¬ 
tion. He says: “ For the ten days preceding the order, viz, from 
November 2 to November 11, inclusive, the records show the whole 
number of arrests to be 1,169. For the ten days in which the order was 
in force, viz, from November 12 to November 21, inclusive, the records 
show the whole number of arrests to be 675.” 

In Massachusetts, at the present time, the liquor traffic is carried on 
chiefly in what are called u beer-shops,” the towns voting annually upon 
the proposition whether they will or will not authorize the sale of beer. 
As the mercury in the thermometer indicates the rising or falling tem¬ 
perature, so do the court-records of these towns as sensitively indicate 
the state of the liquor traffic. It is understood that those who know 
how to say beer with the right inflection can obtain almost any kind of 
liquor desired at these licensed shops. I will cite but a single illustra¬ 
tion. “ In 1871 the city of Taunton voted ‘No beer.’ The number of 
arrests for drunkenness from May 1 to December 31, 1871, was'290. In 
1872 the city voted in favor of the sale of beer, &c. The number of ar¬ 
rests for drunkenness from May 1 to December 31,1872, was 492, being 
an increase over the previous year of 202, or about 70 per cent .” 

Governor Dix, of the State of New York, in his recent message to the 
legislature now in session, calls attention to the alarming prevalence of 
crime in the city of New York as follows: “ The alarming increase in 
frequency of the crime of murder in the city and its environs demands 
your most serious consideration. Scarcely a day passes without wit¬ 
nessing a brutal, and in many instances a fatal assault, upon the persons 
of unoffending individuals, usually in drinking saloons.” 

Bowland Burr, esq., for nearly twenty years a magistrate at Toronto, 
stated to the Canadian parliament “ that nine-tenths of the male pris¬ 
oners and ninteen-twentieths of the female are sent to jail by intoxicat¬ 
ing liquors. In four years there were 25,000 prisoners in Canadian jails, 
of whom 22,000 owed their imprisonment to drinking habits.” 

I will only add in the way of testimony that I understand the very 
recent message of the mayor of this city of Baltimore enumerates an 
aggregateof some 10,000 arrests for the past year, about 8,000 of which 
are to be ascribed, directly or indirectly, to the use of intoxicating 
liquors. 

Do we seek the prevention of crime ? Would we extend due protec¬ 
tion and encouragement to discharged prisoners If so, we have a 
twofold duty : first, to protect the weak from unnecessary temptation 
by a wise policy of legislation; and, second, to employ the ministrations 
of genuine, practical religion. 


PRISON REFORM IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


3G7 


If government may arrest and restrain the criminal, it may interpose 
its beneficent authority to remove palpably demoralizing agencies 5 it 
may close the wide-open doors of temptation. If it may blow up and 
destroy blocks of magnificent buildings to save a city from conflagration, 
it may not only organize and sustain a vigorous fire-department, but 
also prohibit altogether a particularly dangerous fire-inviting architecture. 
That is a poor type of statesmanship, scarcely deserving the name, 
which deals only with results, and does not at the same time look at 
and give due consideration to their producing causes. Hone should be 
permitted to prosecute a traffic for the sake of gain by pandering to the 
vices and inflaming the passions of those who are weak or criminally 
inclined. As infected ships are quarantined in the interest of the pub¬ 
lic health, so must be the grog-shops and drinking-places for the pro¬ 
tection of the weak against undue temptation, as well as society against 
the depredations they may be expected otherwise to commit. 

Most important of all is the religious obligation imposed by the high 
ideal of Christianity toward those who have gone astray and who are 
most exposed to wrong-doing. In the administration of prison disci¬ 
pline it prompts to justice, firmness, and kindness judiciously blended; in 
caring for discharged prisoners, it prompts to extend the helping hand to 
those sorely needing assistance in taking the first step aright in returning 
again to society from their incarceration ; but especially does it exact 
of us all, in the presence of such responsibilities, right precept and ex¬ 
ample. Is strong drink the besetting sin of the criminal classes ? Does 
it cause our brother or sister to offend ® Then is it our religious duty 
to do what we may, each in our own way and sphere of activity, to dis¬ 
courage the drinking usages of society. How frequent and how sad 
are the falls from high social position to the deepest depths of misery 
and crime. How many households with haunting skeletons of the 
worse than murdered victims of the drink-demon. Especially should 
there be thoughtful consideration of the young. To them, and to all, we 
should exemplify and teach temperance, truthfulness, and brotherly 
kindness, and thus build upon the solid foundation, forestall crime, and 
inaugurate the era of a true Christian civilization. 

8. Prison reform in Pennsylvania. 

The board of public charities of Pennsylvania, through its president, 
the Hon. George L. Harrison, submitted to the congress a summary of 
views and suggestions contained in its report for 1872. This paper, 
slightly condensed, is as follows: 

It states the opinion that, in dealing with crime, preventive rather 
than curative measures ought to be mainly relied upon, among which it 
enumerates the following: 

1. A thorough system of universal education. 

2. Special and effective agencies for the care of truant, vagrant, neg¬ 
lected, and overtasked children. 

3. A much larger provision of reformatory schools and houses of cor¬ 
rection for the various grades of juvenile offenders. 

4. Provision for the proper care of the helpless and pauper classes. 

5. Effective laws for the suppression of intemperance. 

6 . Adequate provision for the restraint and employment of all idle 
vagrants. 

7. Provision, in the county and municipal prisons, for the separate 
treatment of vagrants, witnesses, and persons charged with crime, as 
well as convicts. 


368 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Tbe remedial system, or prison discipline proper, should be based on 
the fundamental principle of reformation through punishment,‘and not 
of punishment as an end. Such a system should contain^ among others, 
the following features: 

1. Sufficient provision for the separate confinement of each prisoner. 

2. After a suitable period of separate confinement and the perform¬ 
ance of certain prescribed tasks, provision should be made for the em¬ 
ployment of the convicts in voluntary productive labor, as a means of 
moral improvement and a preparation for their future self-support. 

3. Unless solitary labor should be preferred by the convicts, this labor 
to be performed in small companies or families, properly selected, the 
members having free intercourse together, and being mutually respon¬ 
sible for each other’s conduct. 

4. The proceeds of the labor to be appropriated: a. To defray the 
current expenses of the convict, and to indemnify the State, b. To con¬ 
tribute to the support of the convict’s family, if necessary, c. To the 
convict himself, to go partly to form a reserve fund against the time of 
his release, and to be used partly as he may choose for procuring pres¬ 
ent alleviations and comforts. 

5. Instruction should be given to all the convicts as they may need : 
a. In some trade or handicraft, b. In the elements of learning and 
knowledge, c. In the principles and practice of morality and religion. 

G. Considerate and humane treatment to be emphatically insisted, on, 
using, as far as possible, moral influence instead of physical force, and 
endeavoring, above all things, to develop the self-respect and man¬ 
hood of the prisoners. 

7. A careful classification of the prisoners to be constantly kept up, 
and from time to time corrected—a classification based not upon any 
extraneous or arbitrary considerations, but upon character and conduct. 

8 . Provision to be made for securing a corps of judicious and, event¬ 
ually, experienced prison keepers, so as to render the profession of prison- 
keeper honorable and respected, to which end special schools for their 
education and training should be established. 

0. The substitution of meritorious conduct and probable reformation 
for mere lapse of time, as the ground of final discharge; that is to 
say, until convicts have earned their release by such evidence of good 
conduct and* habits as will rationally imply their permanent reforma¬ 
tion. 

10 . There should be, in the case of each convict, a certain time- 
sentence, graduated according to his offeuse, but always long enough 
to give full opportunity for reformatory processes to take effect. 

[The board is aware that the ideal perfection of the plan which 
makes the discharge of every prisoner dependent on his reformation, 
would require too great a revolution in legal and popular ideas to be as 
yet expected or asked for.] 

11. A system of marks to be instituted which, under fixed rules, may 
be a guide for classification and rewards, as well as for the final judg¬ 
ment; having a debit as well as a credit side, and providing for loss of 
standing and class, or even for remanding to the cell, in case of mis¬ 
conduct. 

12. Intermediate prisons to be provided, where the prisoners, still re¬ 
maining undischarged, may be finally tested, by being trusted with a 
great degree of liberty, and left in large measure to control themselves, 
under most of the ordinary temptations of free life, yet liable, for un¬ 
faithfulness, misconduct, or attempted escape, to be degraded and sent 
back to begin their work over again. 


REFORMATORY POWER OF HOPE. 


369 


13. Refuges to be provided for released prisoners, to facilitate their 
return to society, where they can have, at their own expense, lodging, 
maintenance, and means of employment, until they can procure em¬ 
ployment elsewhere. 

The board express the opinion that such a system would, as a mat¬ 
ter of course, require unity of control. All the prisons and houses of 
detention in a State, of whatever kind or class, should be placed under 
the supervision and general direction of oue head or of one board of 
managers, representing the authority of the State. In respect to all 
matters of prison construction and prison discipline, the county and 
municipal authorities should be required to act under direction and 
control of this central aud supreme authority. 

9. Hope the great reformer: 

By Hon. B. F. Butler. 

My Dear Sir: I have but this moment got round to the matter of 
your inquiry among other more urgent duties. You desire me to state 
to you the method by which I conducted the military prisons and gov¬ 
erned the prisoners during my command of the Department of Virginia 
and North Carolina, in 1864. 

First thanking you for the compliment of commendation of the man¬ 
ner of managing prisoners, I grieve that I shall be unable, being entirely 
without the statistical details of the subject, to give you any exact sta¬ 
tistics. I will try, however, to state, in a manner that will be understood, 
the plan upon which perfect discipline was enforced. 

When I took command in November, 1863, at Fortress Monroe, I found 
a large number of deserters, thieves, and bad criminals of the Army, 
sentenced by court-martial to hard labor for longer or shorter periods. 
They were confined in an old naval depot, known as Fort Norfolk, and 
their hard labor seemed to be, substantially, sleeping all day and play¬ 
ing cards all night; so that the sentence to hard labor at Fort Norfolk 
was rather a fav orite method of passing their term of enlistment by the 
wicked and perverse of the army; both maybe comprehended under 
the name of “ shirks.” I looked around for some suitable place for con¬ 
finement at hard labor, but found none. I have a Yankee horror of what 
is known as the “ chain-gang,” and therefore did not like to work these 
men chained together. I was told that it was impossible to make them 
work without paying them wages. Upon that I doubted. I agreed that 
it was impossible to make men work to any effect without fear of the 
lash or other punishment, or the hope of some reward. I therefore sent 
to Massachusetts and obtained some of our Massachusetts correction- 
uniforms, which consist of a gray and black suit, half and half, cut down 
the center, and a scarlet cap. I clothed my prisoners in this uniform, 
which, as you see, was very distinctive. I put them under the charge 
of the proper officer aud a superintendent, who had at first some men 
to guard them, and put them to work in the spring in cleaning up the 
streets, and alleys, aud lanes of the city of Norfolk, much of it very 
offensive and troublesome work. I gave those that worked in the midst 
of nauseous effluvia and in unhealthy situations a ration of whisky; 
I gave all that used it a ration of tobacco. I saw that they were well 
fed with wholesome and nourishing provisions. They were taken to 
their cells at night to sleep, and, after a day’s work of ten hours, they 
were quite ready to do so. I then directed the superintendent to keep a 
roll of merit of the men, of which they were informed, and empowered 
H. Ex. 185-24 



370 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 187.3. 


him to recommend me to have stricken off from the sentence not ex¬ 
ceeding ten days in each month, according to the diligence and steadi¬ 
ness with which men performed their duty; and in cases of great merit 
a larger portion of tbe specified time of punishment might be remitted. 
In case of refractoriness, solitary confinement, loss of the ration of 
tobacco, and bread and water, were the punishment. 

The sequence—and perhaps I may say the consequence—of this was, 
that a better gang of laborers, more orderly and more quiet, I have never 
known. I never lost one by running away; I never had but one attempt 
to get away, and he failed; and after being shut up a week he begged 
so abjectly and persistently to be allowed to take his place in the work¬ 
ing gang again that it was permitted; and he finally got 33J per cent, 
of his time of punishment remitted for good conduct. I even took the 
gang out into the swamps on the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal to 
repair a break, and although the country was overflowed, I only lost one 
there, and am uncertain to this day whether he deserted or was drowned. 

The prisoners under this system did work which, at any reasonable 
price—and an account was kept with the city of Norfolk of what they 
did do at a price—would have several times compensated for the cost of 
their keep. I insisted upon three things: perfect cleanliness and purity 
in their cells and places of sleep during the night; nutritious and whole¬ 
some food three times a day, viz, before they went out, at noon, and 
after they came back ; and diligent, industrious, hard labor of ten hours 
each day, with a reward for labor that was meritorious by remitting a 
portion of the punishment. 

I have loug thought that the system of labor in our prisons, where 
the laborer had no hope and nothing to labor for, was upon a wrong 
principle. My acquaintance with prisoners as a criminal lawyer taught 
me so much. I had an opportunity to try a different theory and availed 
myself of it, and that is all. 

Renewing, my dear sir, my assurances of highest regard and respect, 
I am, yours truly, 

BENJ. F. BUTLER. 

Dr. Wines. 


10. The final cause of criminal legislation as affecting 

MODES OF PUNISHMENT: 

By James Freeman Clarlte, I). D. 

I. Whatever may be thought of the study of final causes in science, it 
is certain that, in regard to all social questions, it is very useful to in¬ 
quire often : What institutions are for! What is the purpose of such 
and such customs ! What is the end proposed by this or that course 
of action ? These questions are the surest tests to apply to human in¬ 
stitutions in order to learn whether they are working well or have fallen 
into ruts, so that things are done to-day because they were done yester¬ 
day. If I wish to apply a sharp test to any social arrangement—to 
a college, a church, a law, a society, a hospital, &c., the best thing to 
do is to ask, (1.) What is it for ! What is its aim and end ! And then, 
(2.) Is it accomplishing that purpose, or is it not ? 

II. In regard to criminal legislation, several different objects have 
been assumed. It is important, therefore, to ask what are the true ones 
and, among these, which are the most important purposes ! Thus crim- 
inal legislation is sometimes regarded as penal or punitive. Its objec 
is supposed to be to punish the criminal for his guilt. Again, it is 


SUPREME AIM OF CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 371 

✓ 

thought to be reformatory. Its object, according to this view, is to im¬ 
prove the morals of the man who has committed a crime. Lastly, the 
purpose of these laws is considered to be to protect the community. 
They are to prevent crime by making it dangerous and disagreeable in 
its consequences. Let us consider these three supposed purposes of 
criminal legislation, and find which is the truest and most important. 

III. If the object of criminal legislation is to punish crime, we nat¬ 
urally ask, what right has society to punish, and how is it able to do so? 
u Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Almighty. Only God can 
punish justly, for only God can read the heart. 

If God has delegated to society the right to punish, he must also 
have given the power. But evidently society has not the power to in¬ 
flict just punishment on guilt, since it cannot discern motives nor allow 
for circumstances. It is obliged to judge the outward action mainly; 
and its judgments in a moral sense must always be very imperfect. 
Therefore, though the notion of a just retribution may enter into the 
idea of criminal legislation, it cannot be its main object. 

The argument for punitive legislation has been stated strongly by 
Victor Cousin, in his notes to the Gorgias of Plato. He says, u Jus¬ 
tice is the true foundation of punishment; personal and social utility 
only a consequence. In the intelligence, the idea of punishment corre¬ 
sponds to that of injustice, and when the injustice has been committed 
in the social sphere, the- punishment ought to be inflicted by society. 
Punishment is not just because it is useful , but it is useful because it is 
just. 11 

No doubt it is true that punishment expresses the moral indignation of 
the community against crime, and this is a healthy and useful result 
of punishment. It is good for the criminal to feel that the punishment 
he suffers finds an echo in the public conscience. Nevertheless, human 
punishments are so very imperfectly adapted to degrees of guilt, that 
if moral retribution were regarded as their main object, they could 
hardly be sustained. It can only be a secondary purpose. 

IV. Is, then, the main object of punishment the reform of the offender? 
But what right has society to assume to itself the moral education of 
certain persons and sequester them for that purpose, depriving them of 
their liberty % Is it because they have shown themselves by their con¬ 
duct to be in great need of improvement ? But others need it also, in 
a less degree; and those whose outward actions have not been so offen¬ 
sive to society may, in their inward character, need reform much more. 
If the object of penal legislation is to reform the criminal, why select 
one class of offenses only ? Why not imprison the covetous, selfish, un¬ 
truthful, proud, vain, licentious ? They need reform, surely, as much 
as do thieves and robbers? It is evident, therefore, that the moral im¬ 
provement of the criminal can only be a secondary object of punishment. 

V. The proper end of all human laws is declared by publicists to be 
the promotion of the temporal well-being of the community. It is also 
often stated that the proper end of criminal law is the prevention of in¬ 
juries by the terror of punishment. But since crime may be prevented 
in other ways, a better statement would be that “ The object of criminal 
law is the prevention of crime.” This definition excludes the notion of 
punishing the criminal, and also that of reforming him, except so far as 
his punishment or his reformation may conduce to the protection of 
society. These two purposes become secondary and ancillary. Thus 
the question is simplified and put on a practical basis. 

VI. We assume, then, that the object of the criminal law is the pro¬ 
tection of the community, by preventing crime. That the community 


372 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

has a right to punish guilt may be questioned. That it has a right to 
select some bad people to reform may be doubtful. But no one can 
deny that it has a right to protect itself against injury. If criminal 
legislation has this for its avowed object, it rests on a perfectly firm 
foundation. 

Now, penalties inflicted on crime may protect the community in sev¬ 
eral ways. 1. By fear of suffering, which prevents the commission of 
crime. 2. By the actual restraint of the criminal, which disables him 
from committing crime. 3. By tbe education of the conscience through 
the act of public justice. 4. By the reform of the criminal. We will 
consider them in order. 

VII. Criminal law in its early stages lays most stress on terrific pun¬ 
ishments. Its laws are written in blood. The death penalty is applied 
to numerous crimes. The prisons are places of torture, and any attempt 
to alleviate the sufferings of the prisoner is regarded as rose-water senti¬ 
mentalism. Wright, in liis“ Homes of Other Days,” describes the English 
prisons after the Norman conquest thus : “ Imprisonment, even before 
trial, was made frightfully cruel; the dungeons were filthy holes, in 
which loathsome reptiles were bred, and the prisoners were insufficiently 
fed, and sometimes stripped naked.” In the middle ages, he adds: u The 
gallows and the wheel were so commonly used as to be continually 
before people’s eyes. Every town, every abbey, and almost every ma¬ 
norial lord had the right of hanging, and a gallows or tree, with a man 
hanging on it, was so frequent as to be almost considered a part of every 
landscape.” 

But as society advances these punishments appear shocking to the 
community, and it is found that severity in punishment leads to impu¬ 
nity. When punishments are more severe than the public sentiment 
approves, they are not inflicted, and the criminal escapes all punish¬ 
ment. One of the accepted maxims, therefore, of modern criminal juris¬ 
prudence is, u Crime is not prevented by the severity but by the cer¬ 
tainty of punishment.” 

VIII. When criminals are in prison they cannot commit crime, and 
the community is thus protected by any kind of incarceration; but 
most terms of imprisonment are too short to do much good in this way. 
Short imprisonments also interfere w r ith the reformation of the prisoner. 
He is thinking more of getting out than of reform ; he has no time in 
prison to break up bad habits, or form good ones; he has no time to 
learn a trade, or to get any education, and so he usually goes out as bad 
as he came in, and is prepared to begin immediately a new career of 
crime. The protection of the community, therefore, seems to require 
that instead of short terms there should be substituted a sentence*of 
indefinite confinement, the termination of which should depend on the 
behavior of the prisoner. An ignorant prisoner might be sentenced 
until he should have mastered a trade and acquired the rudiments of edu¬ 
cation. Fixed terms of imprisonment of different duration have proba¬ 
bly come from the notion that the chief end of penalty is to punish 
guilt. Such a crime, it is thought, deserves ten years’ imprisonment; 
such another merits only five; another only six months, &c. But if the 
purpose of imprisoning criminals is to protect society, they ought not 
to be set free until they have formed such new habits as will make it 
probable that they will lead honest and industrious lives. 

IX. It is no doubt true that a public trial and conviction, if conducted 
properly, tends to educate the general conscience. But this result de¬ 
pends on the public belief that the innocent man will be generally ac¬ 
quitted and the guilty condemned. Justice becomes a farce when great 


SUPREME AIM OF CRIMINAL LEGISLATION. 373 

criminals, known of all men to be guilty, can readily escape punish, 
ment by the help of able lawyers, skillful bribery,' absurd forms of law- 
or iniquitous judges. Hence criminal legislation should aim at embody¬ 
ing the results of the largest experience and wisest study, and lienee, 
also, the pardoning power of the executive should be limited. 

X. Society is protected by the reform of the criminal. It is only on 
this ground that we can properly advocate such measures as will lead 
to this result. But it is evident that, if no criminal is allowed to leave 
prison except when he has become an honest man, the most fruitful 
source of crime would be stopped up. If a man come from prison un¬ 
reformed, he comes out hardened, and becomes the most daring leader 
in outrages on the public peace. 

Xow the opportunities of reforming a criminal while in prison are 
very great if they are rightly used. He is absolutely separated from 
temptation, from evil companions, and bad influences. He is placed in 
a comparative solitude, where, if ever, he must reflect on himself and 
his conduct. We have the power of shutting out all bad influences, 
and letting all good ones in. We can give him the industrial education 
and intellectual education in which the majority of criminals are defi¬ 
cient. And finally, when he leaves the prison, he comes out ready to 
pursue some honest trade, and to commence a new mode of life. 

XI. All these ends are attained by what is commonly called the 
u Irish system.” Under this plan a prisoner is sentenced for an indefi¬ 
nite period, the duration of which he can greatly determine by his own 
good conduct. There are graded prisons, rising from those where there 
are the least liberty and the greatest hardship, to those in which are 
the most liberty and the least hardship. The prisoner, as his conduct is 
good, is gradually transferred from the lower to the higher prison, and 
thus is under the influence of hope no less than that of fear. He can¬ 
not leave the prison regularly, except by graduating from the highest 
class, and so coming out as a man proved to be a reformed man, not 
by plausible speeches, but by a long course of good behavior. Leaving 
the prison thus, known to be a reformed man, he has no difficulty in 
finding employment, and the taint of the prison does not adhere to him, 
to interfere with his attempts at earning an honest living. He finds 
work easily, and starts with a good standing in society. 

XII. Therefore, if we consider the protection of society as the final 
cause of prison legislation, we are led directly to this system of “ Irish 
prisons,” as best accomplishing the end. Of course we include in this 
term all the methods which belong to this general plan. We advocate 
the reform of the prisoner, not in the interest of philanthropy or religion, 
but in that of society. We reform the prisoner in order to protect so¬ 
ciety. We abolish cruel punishments in order to protect society. We 
introduce hope into the prison to protect society. And in doing this, 
there is no danger that the prison will become too attractive; for this 
plan does not diminish restraint, but rather increases it; and with this 
plan naturally belong more certainty of conviction, less hope of pardon, 
and no prospect of leaving the prison except by genuine and demon¬ 
strated repentance and reformation. 


374 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


11. Thoughts on prison treatment: 

By Alfred 11. Love. 

Philadelphia, Firstmonth 20, 1873. 

To the National Prison Association of the United States in convention at 

Baltimore: 

Bespected Friends : I rejoice that you are holding’ a convention for 
the consideration of the highly important subjects connected with prison 
discipline. I thank you for your invitation, and regret that my engage¬ 
ments are such as to prevent my accepting. 

For fifteen years I have been a visitor of our Eastern penitentiary, 
and am satisfied that kind and humane treatment of prisoners is the 
best. 

Treat crime as a disease and the criminal as a patient. Hence, room, 
light, air, and judicious labor. Banish the idea of mere punishment 
and a machinery system of treatment. Study dispositions and graduate 
the penalties and premiums. 

Start with the idea that those in prison are not the only criminals, 
the difference between detected and undetected criminality being very 
slight. Appeal to the manhood and womanhood of your prisoners, and 
do nothing to break the spirit of self-respect. Place first the refor¬ 
mation of the criminal; secondly, protection of the community; and, 
thirdly, opportunity for restitution for the wrong committed. Abolish 
all time sentences. As we would prescribe for a sick person until he 
was restored, and cease giving medicine to one who has recovered, so 
should we release the prisoner when reformed and safe to go abroad, and 
withhold discharge when not cured and when unsafe to be out. As it 
is now, the unreformed can claim discharge when the time has expired, 
and they are almost certain to return to their criminal pursuits; while, 
on the other hand, the law holds the penitent and reformed long after 
they may be worthy of another trial. 

If it is objected and you say that this will cause hypocrisy, I reply, if 
the i>risoner should be discharged after a committee had w r atched and 
tested his conduct, under the plea of reformation, it will be an evidence 
that it pays to he good , and if he go on all his life pretending to be good, 
the community will be safe and his pretense become a reality. 

May you feel drawn to devote some time to the very important work 
preceding prison life. It is not enough to care for the prisoner w hile in 
prison, nor, indeed, after his discharge ; we must have a constant care to 
prevent prisoners being made. Take care of the erring before the error 
leads to prison. 

With my kindest regards, yours, cordially, 

ALFBED H. LOVE. 


12. A NOBLE TESTIMONY. 

Letter from Rev. C. C. Foote. 

Detroit, January 11, 1873. 

My Dear Friend and Brother: I am in receipt of your invitation 
to attend the Prison Beform Congress at Baltimore, for which I thank 
you. 



PENAL TREATMENT-A NOBLE TESTIMONY. 


375 


What a glorious congress we had at Cincinnati. May yours at Balti¬ 
more excel it in glory. Ilow happy should I be to be with you. But 
my labors for this world are apparently finished. For the past nine 
months I have been a helpless invalid. I put my very life’s blood into 
my four years’ chaplaincy in the Detroit house of correction. Blessed 
years of precious fruit and fatal toil! The field was so constantly 
whitened for the harvest that it seemed impossible to avoid over-labor. 
I know of no place so hopeful for winning men and women back to the 
knowledge and service of God as a properly conducted prison. 

May Heaven hasten the day when the radical reformation of unfortu¬ 
nate criminals shall be the first and highest aim of our prisons, rather 
than the saving to the community of a few paltry dollars. il This,” said 
the great Teacher, u ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
undone.” 

With high esteem and true affection, yours, &c., 

C. C. FOOTE. 

Rev. E. C. Wines, D. D. 


IV. — REPORTS ON THE PENAL, REFORMATORY, AND PRE¬ 
VENTIVE INSTITUTIONS OF STATES AND TERRITORIES. 

1. California. 


By Rev. James Woodworth, corresponding secretary of the California Prison Commission. 

The extreme length of the State of California is about eight hundred 
miles, and the width from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and 
forty miles, with a coast of nearly one thousand miles. The number of 
inhabitants is probably over 600,000. Though young in years, with a 
small population in proportion to its size, yet having a water-front, with 
so vast an extent of country lying back of it, and looking out, through the 
Golden Gate, directly across the sea, to Japan, China, India, and Aus¬ 
tralia, with its fertile soil, its wondrous climate, and its inexhaustible 
stores of mineral wealth, California is destined, at no distant day, to 
equal in importance, commercially and otherwise, the most favored States 
of the American Union. This importance will extend to social and 
moral, as well as material, interests. 

Such being the position and prospective power of California, her influ¬ 
ence will extend over the whole of what is known as the Pacific coast, 
embracing nearly all the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains. Of 
this entire territory, California must take the lead. The character of her 
institu tions, including those which look to the prevention and repression 
of crime, must, to a great extent, impress itself upon the institutions of 
her neighbors. This is already becoming apparent; unpleasantly so, too, 
for while endeavoring to pattern after us, a want of due discrimination 
causes them to copy our defects as well as our excellencies. 

This State was at first little more than the mere camping-ground of 
adventurers, who had come here only for a temporary sojourn. The 
consequence was that almost everything was temporary in its character, 
being designed merely to meet the needs of the actual present, with 
little thought or regard to what should be afterwards. In hardly any¬ 
thing was this more apparent than iu the provisions for punishing crime, 
so that before any regular system had been thought of, the plan adopted 
had become so expanded that it was difficult to change it. 



376 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF IS73. 


Nevertheless, important reforms have already been inaugurated. Our 
criminal laws aud judicial system have been greatly improved. Our 
penal and civil codes, the result of four years’ labor by a commission ap¬ 
pointed to prepare them, have already received high praise from jurists 
fully competent to form a judgment of their merits. 

Our penal institutions are a state prison, ajail in each of the fifty counties 
into which the State is divided, a city prison and jail in San Francisco, 
and station-houses or lock-ups in the principal cities. There is no central 
or general authority, charged with the administration of our entire 
prison system. The state prison, the most important of our penal estab¬ 
lishments, is managed by a board of directors, consisting of the gov¬ 
ernor, the lieutenant-governor, and the secretary of state, all constituted 
directors by their office. The board has no official connection with any 
other penal or reformatory institution in the State. The members are all 
elected at the same time for four years; and, as a matter of course, their 
terms of office expire together. Each receives as state-prison director 
$75 per mouth. The law gives the directors full power to create and fill 
offices, to fix the salaries of officers, to remove them at pleasure, to let 
the labor of the convicts to contractors, and, in short, to do whatever 
they may think necessary or expedient for the good of the institution. 
These pow T ers are not suffered to rust for want of use. They are exer¬ 
cised to the fullest extent, so that an entire change of the prison staff 
follows every change in the political complexion of the board. 

Though the lieutenant-governor is not made ex-officio warden by the 
statute, yet, as no salary is attached to the office to which he is elected, 
and as his duties as president of the senate occupy but a fraction of his 
time, the custom of making him warden, or “ resident director,” has 
become a settled one; so that an election to one office is virtually an 
election to the other. This the law indirectly contemplates by provid¬ 
ing that he shall be “ paid the sum of ten dollars per day for each day’s 
services rendered for the performance of any duty at the state prison.” 

In the early history of the State the convicts were, for a short time, 
kept in a hulk known as the “prison brig.” As the number increased 
and additional accommodations were needed, a prison building was 
erected. The security of the convicts being at that time considered the 
main thing, the prison was built between two ranges of hills, affording 
excellent facilities for guardiugthe inmates by means of cannon planted 
upon them, which swept the entire grounds. The only disadvantage of 
this locality is that it prevents any extension in the direction of the 
hills, and compels every enlargement to be made on a line parallel to 
them. With this exception, a more desirable site could hardly have been 
selected. The prison originally consisted of one stone building, 180 feet 
long by 28 wide, and one story high. It is said to have contained at first 
but one room, into which were crowded three hundred prisoners. It 
has since been divided into rooms and another story added. Other 
cell-buildings, workshops, offices, &c., have been constructed from time 
to time, but so irregularly that the additions have made it a mass of 
patch-work. 

The prison is situated at Point San Quentin, twelve miles north of 
San Francisco, on an indentation of the bay of that name, and within 
three miles of the popular watering-place of San Kafael. The location 
is both healthy and beautiful. It is surrounded by some of the finest 
scenery of the coast, forming a panorama of rare magnificence, the value 
of which, in its elevating and refining influences even upon men who 
are imprisoned as felons, can hardly be exaggerated. The prison prem¬ 
ises embrace about one hundred and thirty acres, most of the land, how- 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF CALIFORNIA. 377 

ever, being of little value except for grazing. The prison grounds proper 
are surrounded by a wall 25 feet high, forming an inclosure of some six 
acres. Within this inclosure, besides a great number of other structures, 
there are three prison buildings, one of which has common dormitories. 
The other two have an aggregate of four hundred and twenty cells, each 9 
feet long, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet high, designed as the dormitory of a. sin¬ 
gle prisoner, but often receiving two. Each cell is supplied with a bunk, 
a straw bed, two blankets, a night bucket, and such other articles of 
convenience or luxury as the taste of the occupant may suggest and his 
ability enable him to buy. 

On the hills flanking the prison are immense reservoirs, one of which, 
now in process of construction, will, when completed, hold 250,000 gal¬ 
lons. Through it the prison will be supplied with pure mountain-water 
by an incorporated company. 

The prison staff consists of sixty-three persons, and their salaries 
aggregate $50,340 per annum, over and above the supply of the warden’s 
table and the board of the other officers, making together more than 
one-third of the entire yearly cost of the establishment. 

The industries carried on are the manufacture of furniture, saddles, 
harness, wagons, and boots and shoes; to which is added, in summer, 
brick-making. These give employment to about five hundred and forty 
men, whose labor is let to contractors at 40 cents a day. The average 
number of prisoners is about 900, two per cent, of whom are women. The 
chapel will seat five hundred persons. It has a handsome pulpit and 
sofa, and an excellent cabinet organ, all purchased with money contrib¬ 
uted by the prisoners. The organ is played by one of themselves. 
There is no regular chaplain, and never has been. Public worship, how¬ 
ever, is held every Sunday, conducted by ministers of different denomi¬ 
nations from San Francisco, who volunteer their services. All the 
prisoners are permitted, though none compelled, to attend. About 
three hundred are usually present. The prison choir is composed of 
convicts, who perform well that part of the service. 

After divine service the prison school is convened, in which one hun¬ 
dred and fifty to two hundred prisoners are instructed in the elementary 
branches of an English education by some of the better educated of 
their own number. During the first eighteen months of the existence 
of the school one hundred and eighty prisoners were taught to read and 
write, and though many of them had been discharged, not one had come 
back to prison. When the school closes, some twenty of the prisoners, 
who profess to be striving to serve the Lord, meet for prayer and con¬ 
ference, and an hour is spent in those exercises. 

The prison library contains about 3,000 volumes, and is well patron¬ 
ized, 1,000 books being taken out every month. Occasionally the pris¬ 
oners have an entertainment of their own, which consists of readings, 
recitations, and compositions prepared by themselves. Once in a while, 
also, a familiar lecture is delivered to them by some person invited to 
that service, professors in the State University sometimes visiting the 
prison for this purpose. 

Formerly the principal means of discipline was the lash. This is now 
not often used. The punishments at present employed are loss of time 
gained under the commutation law, the dark cell, a reduced diet, and 
the shower-bath applied by means of a hose and nozzle. The commu¬ 
tation law allows the convict a credit of five days for every month of 
good behavior for the first two years, and an additional day during each 
succeeding two years up to ten, after which he gains ten days per month. 
This law has worked admirably, and has very much reduced the neces- 


378 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

sity for actual punishment. Aside from this, no rewards are given for 
good conduct. 

Every convict, if without clothing of his own, is supplied, on his dis¬ 
charge, with a suit by the State, consisting of a coarse 3hirt, a pair of 
pants, a woolen jacket, a pair of brogans, and a cheap hat 5 and, in 
addition, $5 in money are given to him. 

The prisoners’ food, though plain, is of good quality and in abundant 
quantity. On Thanksgiving and Christmas a sumptuous dinner is served 
to them, which is usually provided by the benevolent citizens of San 
Francisco through a committee of the California prison commission. 

The sanitary state of the prison is good. Only eight deaths occurred 
last year, being a little less than one per cent. 

The expenses of the prison for the past year have been $106,790, and 
the earnings $67,650, leaving a deficiency of $99,140. 

The fees allowed the sheriffs for the transportation of prisoners after 
conviction are 50 cents per mile for a single prisoner, and 25 cents for 
each additional prisoner. It thus costs, to get a convict to the prison 
from some of the more remote counties, $260. The entire cost of trans¬ 
portation for the twenty-second fiscal year of the prison was $19,997.50, 
or about $72 per prisoner. 

The governing authorities of the county jails are the boards of 
county supervisors, but the sheriffs of the counties, elected for two 
years, are in immediate charge. These appoint their deputies, so that 
change is as much the order of the day here as in the state prison. 

The prison accommodations of San Francisco are not sufficient for its 
needs. The city has two prisons—a police prison and a city jail. The 
police prison is in the basement of the city hall. It is damp, dark, ill- 
ventilated, and greatly overcrowded. The city jail is a substantial and 
handsome building, but quite too contracted in dimensions for present 
necessities. Sixteen Chinamen have been confined in a cell 10 feet by 
8 , with a ceiling only 8 feet high. The necessity for such cruel over¬ 
crowding has been, in some degree, obviated by the erection of a small 
additional building in the yard of the jail. A house of correction has 
been resolved upon, which, when built and in operation, will afford all 
the relief required for the present. 

There can be no doubt that our prisons themselves are schools of 
crime. Many are made confirmed criminals by being sent there, who, 
in all probability, would not become such if, while undergoing their pun¬ 
ishment, they could escape the moral contagion with which these places 
abound. 

There is but one reformatory for juveniles in the State. This bears 
the name of industrial school, and is situated in the immediate neigh¬ 
borhood of San Francisco. The average number of inmates is two hun¬ 
dred and fifty, all boys. The school has a farm of one hundred acres, 
which gives employment to quite a number of the children. Others are 
engaged in shoe-making, tailoring, aud household duties. A good many 
are too young to labor. The forenoon is devoted to work, the after¬ 
noon to study, and the evening to music, vocal and instrumental. 
There is a band composed of thirty boys, one of their number acting as 
leader. The punishments are severe whipping with a cowhide or 
leather strap, standing in a stooping posture on a wooden box or iron 
safe, dark cell, &c. Escapes are frequent. Recently thirteen got away 
within a fortnight. The history of the institution for some years past 
lias been deplorable; but details would scarcely be to edification. 

Of preventive measures in operation among us I place first the earn¬ 
est, prayerful efforts of Christian men and women; and chief of all the 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF CONNECTICUT. 379 

influence of wise and godly parents. Next are tbe preaching of the 
word, the Sunday-school, and other agencies for giving effect to the 
gospel. Closely following these are public and private schools. 
Our orphan asylums, where the lack of parental culture is, to a great 
extent, supplied, are greatly preventive of crime. So is the Ladies’ 
Protective and Belief Society, with its “ home,” in which one hundred 
and seventy-three children, though not orphans, are cared for and edu¬ 
cated. Temperance societies, young men’s Christian associations, and 
the various other benevolent agencies with which our State, and partic¬ 
ularly the city of San Francisco, abound, are all doing their part in 
this great preventive work. 

Little or nothing is done for the aid of discharged prisoners, except 
by the California prison commission, an institution organized in 1865, 
with this as its primary object. Its office ?s in San Francisco. The 
general agent gives his whole time to the work. He visits regularly 
the city prison and county jail here, and the state prison at San Quen¬ 
tin. This he does, not only to converse with and counsel their inmates, 
but also to learn their purposes and necessities, so as to be better pre¬ 
pared to deal with them when, on their release, they call upon him at 
his office. Having myself occupied the position for nearly five years, 
and having been ever since familiar with the operations of the associa¬ 
tion, I am prepared to speak in emphatic terms of the success of the 
agent’s efforts. The number of discharged prisoners variously aided by 
him during the past year was 462 ; the number of prisoners aided with 
legal counsel, 116 ; aided by mitigation of punishment, 70 ; discharged 
through his interposition, 46; aided with board and lodging, 101; 
helped with small sums of money, 198; supplied with clothing, 8; fur¬ 
nished with means to leave the city, 141. The whole number of pris¬ 
oners conversed with, counseled, and in some way aided, materially or 
morally, was 1,387; whole number of interviews had with these, 2,827. 


2. Connecticut. 

By Rev. J. K. Fessenden, secretary of the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls. 

I. Preventive institutions .—By these are meant institutions designed 
exclusively for children under eight years of age, who, by the death, 
abandonment, incompetency, or vices of their parents, are thrown upon 
society, but in no proper sense to be regarded as criminals. Of these 
there "are four Protestant orphan asylums, open to children of every 
nationality and faith. The first was established by ladies at New 
Haven in 1833. Commencing without funds and in a very humble way, 
its assets now amount to $36,500, with several large legacies in pros.- 
pect. There are now one hundred and twenty-six inmates, more than 
one-half of whom are of American parentage. 

Next to this a similar institution was established at Hartford, which 
has about the same number of inmates, and is already the recipient of 
large donations and legacies. 

Third in order is the Bridgeport asylum, which is of recent origin. It 
w r as designed especially for the children rescued from the city alms¬ 
house. 

The fourth is a small family-home for poor children. This was started 
by, and is under the control of, a benevolent lady in Danbury. 


380 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

All these institutions are private charities, under the management of 
boards of women, and are accomplishing a great amount of good. 

There are two Roman Catholic orphan asylums, designed exclusively 
for the children of Catholics. They are at New Haven and Hartford. 
Respecting them, I have been able to obtain no definite information. 

During the late civil war much interest was excited in behalf of the 
children of soldiers killed in the service of our country. An association 
was formed for their care, to which was given a home at Mansfield. Its 
noble-hearted and Christian donor devoted himself to its superintend¬ 
ence during his brief life, with the sole reserve of a bare mainten¬ 
ance. The school was opened in 1866, and up to 1st of June, 1871, had 
received one hundred and thirty-two children, of whom sixty-eight were 
admitted during the past year. It is supported largely by the contribu¬ 
tions of the common and Sabbath-schools of the State, aided by dona¬ 
tions from other friends, and by an appropriation of $1.50 per week for 
each inmate. 

A similar, though smaller institution, was established at Darien by 
the liberality of a wealthy gentleman, who has largely contributed in 
various ways to its support. 

Of late there have been several other charitable institutions started 
at Hartford and New Haven, which cannot fail to be preventives of 
crime. I refer to associations for the aid of the poor, under the care of 
the city missionaries, and also to reading and refreshment rooms for 
news-boys and laboring men. There has also been established at Hart¬ 
ford a boarding-house for respectable young women, where they can find 
homes at a moderate cost and enjoy the associations and benefits of a 
respectable and virtuous home. 

II. Reformatory institutions .—These are the State Reform School for 
Boys, at West Meriden ; the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls, at 
Middletown; and the Home for the Friendless, at New Haven. 

The State Reform School for boys was established in 1854. It is a 
State institution, created, owned, and, through a board of eight trustees, 
controlled by the State. It has a valuable, well-watered farm of one 
hundred and sixty-three acres, which lias become one of the model 
farms of the State. The institution has ample accommodations for three 
hundred boys, with model dormitories, school-rooms, workshops, chapel, 
offices, and all the modern appliances for the proper care and discipline 
of the inmates. 

The barn and other out-buildings are substantial and convenient, and 
the stock of the farm very choice and valuable. 

The system on which the institution is conducted is that known as 
the congregate, in distinction from the family plan. It is so adminis¬ 
tered as to be pervaded by a spirit of wisdom and kindness—by the 
mingling of authority with constant appeals to the intelligence, the best 
convictions, and the noblest aspirations of the boys who are gathered, 
under its care; every day the family of the superintendent and the 
boys unite in morning and evening devotions, accompanied with the 
inspiriting singing of hymns and with such advice as its gifted super¬ 
intendent thinks proper to impart. God’s providence and goodness 
are recognized in the convocations for morning and evening prayer, 
and at each successive meal. For several hours every one daily 
attends one of these graded schools of the establishment, under the 
general care of the assistant superintendent, who from the beginning 
has managed this department with conscientious devotion and con¬ 
summate ability, and who has all the assistance needed in his work. 
Several hours are each day devoted to labor on the farm or in the 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF CONNECTICUT. 381 


workshop, under the direction of skillful overseers, and with all the 
necessary stimulants to skill and industry. The food and clothing are, 
both iu quantity and quality, all that health and comfort require; 
cleanliness is exacted, and order and unhesitating submission to author¬ 
ity enforced by special religious services on the Sabbath, and by a 
constant reference at other times to the laws and claims of God. 

More than eighteen hundred boys have been connected with this 
school during the nineteen years of its existence. The limit of their 
age is from eight to sixteen. Originally none could be sent to the 
school who were not convicted by the justices of the peace or some 
criminal court of an offense punishable by law. But since 18G9 many 
have been committed under the truant law. 

The results—financial, moral, and social—of this school are believed 
to be as favorable as those of any other institution of the kind in the 
United States. The superintendent believes that three-fourths of the 
boys become as respectable, virtuous, and useful men as the average of 
the common classes of society. 

The counterpart of the boys’ reform school is the Connecticut Indus¬ 
trial School for Girls. This is in the beautiful town of Middletown, on 
a finely situated farm of forty-five acres, a mile and a half from the cen¬ 
ter of the city. This site was the generous gift of the town, at a cost 
of $11,500. 

Unlike the boys’ school, this institution is a private charity, incor¬ 
porated by the State and employed by it to take charge of the viciously- 
inclined young girls who may be sent there. For this service the State 
stipulates to pay $3 per week for each girl thus sent. Unlike the boys’ 
school, too, this is organized upon the family plan, with houses having 
accommodations each for thirty girls. 

The school has been in operation three years, and has received one 
hundred and sixteen inmates, of whom eighty-one still remain. The dis¬ 
tinctive features of this school may be thus concisely stated : 

1 . Its name is the industrial , not the reform , school for girls. 

2 . Its proper subjects are viciously-inclined girls , between the ages of 
eight and sixteen years. They are not simply orphans, or the neglected 
and foundling, nor yet are they those who, as a class, have fully entered 
upon a course of vice and crime. They are rather neglected and aban¬ 
doned children, thrown out, from whatever cause, upon the wide world, 
friendless, ignorant, and under the depraving and debasing influences 
of abject poverty and vicious associations. Sixty per cent, of them are 
wholly or in part orphans. More than 75 per cent, are the children of 
drunkards and criminals—of abandonment and prostitution. Most of 
them were paupers, beggars, vagrants, petty thieves, and too many of 
them have already been drawn into the society, if not the practice, of 
lewdness. 

3. They are regarded and treated by the law of the State, not as crim¬ 
inals to be convicted and punished, but a*& ignorant and exposed 
children—as sinned against rather than as sinners, and as such to be 
pitied and educated. The State stands in the place of a common parent, 
and, as such, cares for them where their parents or other natural guar¬ 
dians are dead, or are incompetent or unwilling properly to train and 
educate them. Upon due evidence of this fact, the State intrusts these 
children to the care and guardianship of the directors of the industrial 
school till they are eighteen years of age, with the power to restore 
them to their natural parents, to bind them out, or to intrust them to 
adopting parents, or suitable guardians. 

4. At the school the aim is to bring the girl at once under the nearest 


382 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

possible approach to the influences of a well-regulated Christian family, 
with its household worship, sweet songs, its motherly watchfulness, 
and its pious counsels and steady and gentle but firmly authoritative 
and constant training. All in turn are taught the duties of the house¬ 
hold—to wash, to iron, to cook, to sew, and to give to everything a look 
of tidiness. 

5. Careful attention is given to scholastic and religious culture and 
thrift and training; but it would occupy too much space to go into 
detail upon these points. 

0. A residence at the school is not to be too long protracted—not 
longer than is needed to fit the girl for a useful residence in a private 
family, and the almost equally difficult task of finding a family that 
will be willing to take a friendless and often froward girl, and seek as 
earnestly to complete the good work begun as to obtain her labor at the 
lowest possible cost. 

7. It is designed to leave the door wide open at all times for the girl’s 
return to the school if, for any cause, such a return is thought best, and 
to follow those who have gone from it until there is reason to believe 
that they are beyond the need of its guardian care. 

There is promise of the best results, but it is too soon to speak with 
confidence on this point. 

There is a third reformatory institution, viz, the Home for the Friend¬ 
less, at New Haven. This is designed for friendless, outcast, and neg¬ 
lected women of every age and condition. The Industrial School could 
not receive those who were far advanced in a life of crime. Hence 
Christian women sought to provide for all such a refuge whenever they 
were disposed to turn from their evil courses. Here, they say in one 
of their reports, “from the hospital the convalescent, from the jail the 
culprit, from the alms-house the friendless, find a gateway through 
which they can enter the higher and purer paths to virtue and inde¬ 
pendence.” For this purpose they have purchased and fitted up a com¬ 
fortable dwelling a few miles from the city. It is under the care of a 
board of ladies who superintend all its concerns. The charity of the 
benevolent has thus far abundantly supplied them with the funds 
needed for their work, and in many cases they have had the joy of 
knowing that their work of love has not been in vain. 

III. Penal institutions .—Of these there are three classes, the town 
work-house or house of correction, the county jail, and the state prison. 

The several towns have power to establish work-houses or houses of 
correction, to erect and provide suitable buildings, with cells or apart¬ 
ments for the confinement of offenders sentenced thereto, and to compel 
the labor of the inmates. These are under the care of the selectmen, 
who appoint the keeper and regulate his pay.’ It is a sad fact that in 
these town-houses are frequently found, indiscriminately mingled, the 
virtuous and friendless poor, the demented, the imbecile, and the mis¬ 
erable tramps, vagrants’, and drunkards, who infest the streets, and 
steal their living so long as they are able, and then perhaps apply to 
the town-officers for a brief shelter. With these, too, are found the 
refuse of the towns and cities, sentenced there, time after time, for sixty 
days, for drunkenness, prostitution, and petty thefts. This class of 
institutions are a disgrace to the State, and will continue to be so, until 
their true character and their enormity shall be brought to light by a 
careful official investigation, and remedied by the strong arm of State 
authority. 

The second class of penal institutions is the county jails. Of these 
there are eleven, or one for each of the county towns. As their names 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF CONNECTICUT. 383 


indicate, they are county institutions, built, owned, and managed ex¬ 
clusively by the counties. The result of this is a great want of uniformity 
in their construction and management, and as great a difference in their 
general character. They are used only as places for the detention of 
persons committed for trial or convicted of minor offenses. 

Full returns are made yearly through the county commissioners to 
the secretary of state of the number, color, sex, age, and nativity 
of the prisoners, as also of their social condition, habits, education, 
causes of commitment, method of discharge, and of the receipts and 
expenditures of each jail, an abstract of which is submitted to the legis¬ 
lature. From this we learn that there were committed to the jails during 
1871 two thousand seven hundred and forty-five persons. The average 
number confined was three hundred and thirty. Of these, five-sixths 
were males, thirteen-fifteenths of foreign birth, more than half were com¬ 
mitted for drunkenness, and only one hundred and forty-seven were 
strictly temperate. In most cases there is no other separation of the 
prisoners than that of the sexes. There is no provision made by law for 
their secular instruction, and but little if any given. The jail in New 
Haven is of modern construction, and is the only one in the State which is 
in any respect what it ought to be. In Fairfield and Hartford Counties 
new buildings are in process of erection on the most approved models. 

The character and influence of our jails is thus sketched by the spe¬ 
cial commission on the state prison in their report to the legislature of 
1872: 

Many of our jails and houses of detention for the idle and vicious hold about the 
same relation to the state prison that the common schools do to the colleges. We can¬ 
not now enter into the sanitary condition of our jails and work-houses, though we are 
certain that it is bad enough in most of them. But we call your attention to them as 
nurseries of crime with regard to the state prison. In the poor-houses the innocent 
poor are brought into contact with the abandoned aMd profligate; and those who 
have only slightly and for the first time, perhaps, departed from the way of decency, 
associate with those skilled in crime and hardened in shame. In the jails those com¬ 
mitted for trial, charged with a first offense and presumed by the law to be innocent 
till proved guilty, and those young in sin, have opportunities of association with the 
vilest and most abandoned criminals, and the result in both cases is deplorable. The 
minor jails are not simply feeders of the penal prisons, but they offer uncommon facilities 
for the production of criminals. There are jails in this State which are as wisely and 
humanely managed as is possible under our prison system, or rather our want of sys¬ 
tem. But we are convinced that the jails and poor-houses of this State need a thorough 
examination, and that it is time that we had a comprehensive system for all such in¬ 
stitutions. 

3. The State prison .—From 1773 to 1827, tlie State prisoners of Con¬ 
necticut were immured 60 feet under ground in an abandoned copper 
mine at Simsbury. The prison was known as the Newgate of Connecti¬ 
cut. The history of that long period is one of the saddest proofs of the 
barbarities then practised by Christian States upon the criminal classes. 

In 1826 the present state prison at Wethersfield was built, and in 
1827 was placed uuder the superiutendency of Moses Pilsbury, with 
the assistance of his son Amos Pilsbury, now of Albany. The latter 
succeeded his father as superintendent in 1830, and remained in that 
position for fifteen years. There is scarcely to be found in the history 
of state-prison management a brighter record than that of these years 
under these remarkable men. The Connecticut state prison became 
the model institution of the United States, and was assigned the first 
place in the report to the French government of the distinguished French 
commissioners on prisons, de Tocqueville and de Beaumont, in 1830. 

This pre-eminence, however, has long since passed away. A new order 
of things in respect to prison discipline has dawned upon the world, and 


384 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


has greatly modified the systems and management of other States, while 
in Connecticut they have remained essentially the same. 

The very able report of the commissioners of 1872, which has been 
already cited, makes the following statements: 

The commissioners entered on their wprk in the belief that the present prison might 
be so repaired and modified as to suit modern ideas, but they were brought to the 
decided conclusion that the Sfate needs a new prison on a more favorable site, and 
constructed on an entirely different principle and scale. Among the reasons given for 
this conclusion are the dilapidated condition and utter inadequacy of the present 
buildings; that there are no suitable accommodations for the officers; that there is no 
suitable drainage of the premises; that the cells are too small and admit of no ventil- 
lation, and many of them damp and unwholesome; that a proper separation of the 
sexes even is now impossible, and, indeed, cannot be secured in the same prison. While 
they would retain the present silent system, they would greatly modify it. They recom¬ 
mend the construction of a new prison which shall admit of a proper grading of the 
prisoners, the discontinuance of the parti-colored prison-dress, the cropping of the hair, 
and, indeed, everything which disregards the manhood of the prisoner and extinguishes 
hope. They would treat him as a man and a brother, though erring and fallen and 
degraded. 

The industries pursued are shoe-making, the manufacture of car¬ 
penters’ rules, and the burnishing of silver ware. The gross earnings 
of the last year were $20,390, and the ordinary expenses were $23,187, 
leaving a balance in favor of the State of $3,212. 

Religious and educational agencies are employed to a limited extent 
in the discipline of the prison. A chaplain is employed, who conducts 
religious services daily and also upon the Sabbath, in which he reports most 
of the prisoners manifesting a commendable interest. A Sunday-school 
is held every Sabbath afternoon, and the men are visited during the 
week by the chaplain in their cells. Much interest was awakened last 
year by addresses on temperance, made by members of the Good Samar¬ 
itan Association, of Hartford. Secular instruction is given in the even¬ 
ing to a few prisoners in their cells. 

The commissioners recommend that the new prison shall have every 
needed facility for the mental and religious instruction of its inmates. 

Prisoners have the power of shortening their terms of sentence by good 
conduct, a measure which has shown itself useful both in a disciplinary 
and reformatory point of view. No provision for discharged convicts is 
made beyond that of giving them a suit of clothes and $10 in money on 
their liberation. Reform is urgently needed in this direction, either 
through legislation or private benevolence. 


3. Illinois. 


By Rev. Fred. H. Wines, secretary of the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities. 

The prison system of Illinois may be said, as in all the Western States, 
to be still in its infancy; and although a new State has one great advan¬ 
tage over those which are older in the opportunity thus afforded of 
profiting by the experience of those wiio have trodden the path before 
us, we cannot in Illinois boast of having improved our opportunity, in 
so far as relates to the laws and usages of prisons. The reason probably 
is found in the existence of an almost universal apathy and indifference 
upon the subject. The reformation of criminals is regarded as a hope¬ 
less undertaking. The substitution of district prisons for county jails is 
resisted by those who depend in part for their income upon the profits 



PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF ILLINOIS. 385 


of jail-keeping. The result is, that any intelligent, systematic effort at 
the introduction of labor into prisons designed tor criminals of the lower 
grade, or at intellectual or moral culture of criminals of this class, is at 
present impossible. In presenting the following brief sketch of the 
prisons of the State, therefore, my only object is to state what is, not to 
depict what should be. For the realization of the desired reform in our 
prison system we may be compelled to wait many years, until persistent 
agitation and the advance of popular intelligence have accomplished 
their work. Reform, at some time, is certain. 

The countij jails. 

There are, iu this State, one hundred and two counties. In nearly all 
of them, at the county-seat, there is a jail, varying in size from a single 
cell to fifty, and in cost from $1,000 to $90,000. A dozen of our jails, 
at least, have cost over $20,000 each. Nearly oue-fourth of the whole 
number probably are substantially and handsomely built, commonly of 
stone, and are furnished more or less fully with approved appliances for 
heating, ventilation, sewerage, and bathing. Of the remainder, some 
are under ground dungeons in the basements of court-houses or of 
sheriffs’ residences; some are old-fashioned block-houses, sheathed on 
the iuside with iron ; some are iron cages, set like safes for moneys and 
valuable papers, in the entry or in the upper story of the jailer’s house ; 
some are virtually privies, placed over open vaults, whose noxious 
gases circulate through the cells and corridors above without let or 
hinderance. Most of them are very small, and it is a pleasure to be 
able to add that many of them are nearly always empty. The number 
of prisoners in confinement at any one time in Illinois is never large, if 
we except the convicts in the penitentiary. 

The following extract from the (unpublished) report of the board of 
charities will furnish a somewhat fuller account of the jails of this 
State: 

Oar deliberate judgment is, that the practical value of jails, whether as means of 
prevention or of cure of crime, compared with their great cost, is very trifling. We 
find, upon inquiry, that others have arrived at the same conclusion before us. In fact, 
this opinion is shared by nearly all who have given the subject any attention. Prob¬ 
ably no other equal expenditure of public money is equally unprofitable. 

Iu the first place, the county jails of Illinois, as of other States, are for the most 
part badly planned, it not badly built. Some of them are very unsafe; and but for 
the vigilance of the jailers in charge, escapes would be an every-day occurrence. They 
are unsafe, either through the weakness of some particular portion of the structure; 
or on account of the facility of communication in them, among the prisoners, and 
even, iu many instances, with the outside community; or because they afford no ade¬ 
quate protection to the turnkey against sudden assault. 

Others are as secure as any jail can be made, but are wholly deficient in the essential 
conditions of life and health. They have ofdinarily no sewerage; they are illy ventil¬ 
ated, or not ventilated at all; they are very imperfectly lighted; some of them are 
destitute of any means of warming the air in winter, and scarcely any of them have 
proper provision for bathing by the prisoners. 

A jail may be safe and comfortable, and yet be so constructed as to render the classi¬ 
fication of prisoners impossible. There is not a jail in the State in which the accused 
are separated from the sentenced. Witnesses are often, but not always, confined in a 
separate apartment, known as the “debtors’ prison.” In some of the jails there is no 
means of separating the sexes; in others, the only separation is by cells, opening into 
a common corridor; in others, female prisoners are confined iu the debtors’ prison ; in 
others, a female department has been extemporized in the sheriff’s private residence, 
by sheathing an ordinary window with sheet iron ; in a few, the female prison is prop¬ 
erly planned and built. The number of witnesses and women, however, in confine¬ 
ment in this State, at any one time, is very small. 

As to the internal management and discipline, generally, there is not much occasion 
for complaint. We are satisfied that where food is so abundant and cheap, the temp- 

11. Ex. 185-25 



386 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


tation to stint prisoners in their diet is wanting; and in many counties they are fed 
from the jailer’s own table; many counties even furnishing clothing, in extreme cases, 
at public expense. The jails are not always as neatly kept as they might be, and per¬ 
sonal cleanliness on the part of the inmates is not sufficiently insisted upon. In some 
cases, a little more care to provide reading matter would be commendable. But in all 
our experience, we have found no evidence or intimation ot personal cruelty to pris¬ 
oners. 

There are two particulars, and these of paramount importance, in which the very 
best jails in the State are as objectionable as the worst. We refer (1) to the hourly in¬ 
tercourse of prisoners with each other, and (*2) to their lack of any useful, honorable 
employment. It is this association in idleness, which is the curse and condemnation of 
our present jail system. 

Confinement in separate cells is a partial but very imperfect barrier to association ; 
because communication between the cells is not impossible, and communication in the 
corridors is generally allowed, to a certain extent. It is also customary to place from 
two to six prisoners, when necessary, in a single cell, on account of the want of suffi¬ 
cient room in the majority of jails. 

The effect of association is to increase the number of criminals, and to develop their 
criminality. The innocent and the comparatively innocent are corrupted by the ex¬ 
ample, the conversation, and the direct teaching of more experienced transgressors. 
The lessons taught in county jails are, contempt for authority, human or divine; hos¬ 
tility to law and to its officers; the delights of vicious indulgence; the duty of revenge 
upon society for imaginary wrongs; the necessity of violence, of daring, and of sullen 
submission to punishment; the liopelesness of all effort at amendment; and the best 
methods of success in criminal undertakings. Past exploits are here recounted; future 
deeds of darkness are planned. The history and character of noted criminals and of 
well-known officials are discussed. Lewd songs and conversation, profanity and ribald 
jests, fill up the day. In many jails card-playing is freely allowed. In a few, liquor is 
not absolutely prohibited, provided that the prisoner ordering it is able to pay liberally 
for the indulgence. Every jail is a school of vice. More thau one hundred of such 
schools are maintained in Illinois, at public expense; and the public furnishes an edu¬ 
cation iu crime, at its own cost, annually, to hundreds of criminals, in this State alone. 
We admit the necessity for prisons ; but are we not right in asking whether prisons of 
this particular class do not work as much harm as good to the community ? 

But the evils of promiscuous association are enhanced by the universal reign of 
idleness in county prisons. This idleness is compulsory; it is a necessity of the situa¬ 
tion. The State appoints as the presiding genius loci, the mother of all villauy, instead 
of labor, the mother of every virtue. No policy could be more shortsighted. 

Idleness, in prison, is a premium upon crime. Multitudes of men commit larceny 
every autumn, simply to secure, free of cost to themselves, comfortable board and 
lodging, with agreeable company, through the winter months. They do not dread the 
confinement, and care nothing for the disgrace. 

In enforcing idleness, the State voluntarily relinquishes the most effective means 
both of the punishment and of the prevention of crime. What makes men criminals ? 
In nine cases out of ten, it is aversion to labor, and the conviction that a life of crime 
is easier and fuller of enjoyment than a life of industry. Make labor compulsory in 
all prisons, and the prison at once becomes a terror to evil-doers. Confinement at hard 
labor is to the majority of criminals the severest possible punishment. But the present 
system ignores this most obvious truth. 

The physical and moral effect of protracted idleness upon individuals is deterioration. 
The muscles become flaccid, lymph accumulates, the nervous system loses its tone, the 
will is enfeebled, the moral nature is depraved ; and at the expiration of his imprison¬ 
ment, the offender goes forth, to recommence his criminal career, with his power to 
earn an honest livelihood and to resist temptation diminished instead of augmented. 

These facts are well known to all county officials, and give rise to much lamentation 
on the part of all sensible men who have the cause of public virtue at all at heart. 
One of the worst effects of the present system is its influence upon circuit and county 
judges, in inducing them, against their own inclination, to sentence men for the shortest 
periods, when justice demands a maximum sentence, instead. But a judge inevitably 
thinks of the cost to the county of protracted imprisonment; he knows its futility; 
and he asks himself, what is the use ? The consequence is, that crime is not adequately 
punished; transgressors are emboldened ; crime increases; and too often an outraged 
community takes the administration of justice into its own hands. This is the origin 
of lynch law, that blot upon American civilization. Lynch law is nature’s own remedy 
for weakness in the criminal administration of any government. 

The penitentiary. 

Tlie Illinois State penitentiary, at Joliet, is one of the largest and 
most magnificent structures in the United States. It is constructed on 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF ILLINOIS. 387 

the plan of a center building with two wings, and the necessary shops 
are in the yard. The number of prisoners averages about twelve 
hundred and fifty, of whom, perhaps, twenty are women. The cellular 
system is followed, in the arrangements for eating and for sleeping, 
but the labor is on the congregate plan. Solitary confinement during 
the term of sentence is resorted to in the last extremity as a punishment 
for the incorrigible refractory. The branches of labor pursued are 
cigar-making, cooperage, the manufacture of shoes and harness, and 
also of butts, and stone-cutting. For stone-cutting and quarrying, the 
immense fields of stratified limestone, at Joliet, afford peculiar facilities. 
The new state-house now building at Springfield is constructed of this 
stone, and the cutting is done by^ the inmates of the penitentiary. 

The average sentence of convicts at Joliet is about three years. 
Seventy criminals have been sentenced to imprisonment for life in 
Illinois during the past seventeen years, of whom seven died in prison, 
one was sent to the insane asylum, and twenty-three have been pardoned, 
after serving for a longer or shorter time, as shown in the following 
statement: 

Three served 1 year; 2 served 2 years; 4 served 3 years; 2 served 4 
years; 1 served 5 years; 6 served 6 years; 2 served 7 years; 2 served 8 
years ; 1 served 10 years—23 served, on an average, less than five years 
each. 

Of the thirty-nine life convicts still in confinement, 2 have served 11 
years; 1 has served 8 years; 2 have served 7 years; 5 have served 6 
years; C have served 4 years; 7 have served 3 years; 6 have served 2 
years; 3 have served 1 year; 7 have served less than one year— 39 have 
served, on an average, about three and one-half years each. 

About four-fifths of the commitments are for crimes against property, 
and one-fifth for crimes against the person. About one-fourth of those 
committed are foreigners. The ratio of foreign convicts to the foreign 
population of the State is no larger than that of native convicts to the 
native population, one-fourth of our entire population being foreign- 
born. 

A library of three thousand volumes has been provided for the use of 
prisoners. A school, numbering two hundred or two hundred and fifty, 
has been organized, and a teacher employed, lieligious services are 
held in the chapel on the Sabbath, and the chaplain visits the men 
nightly in their cells. 

For many years this penitentiary was leased by the State to the 
highest and best bidder. A few years ago the system of leasing was 
abandoned, and the discipline and financial management on behalf of 
the State were placed in the hands of the warden, subject to the direc¬ 
tion of a board of commissioners. On the 1st of December, 1870, the 
indebtedness of the institution was stated by the warden at $332,832.18. 
The general assembly, after making an appropriation for the payment 
of the existing indebtedness, authorized the leasing of the labor of the 
inmates, retaining the general management and discipline in the hands 
of the prison officers, and the result is that during the past year, for 
the first time in its history, the penitentiary has earned $35,000 or 
$40,000 above the actual expenses. 

The State reform school. 

At Pontiac, on the Chicago and Saint Louis Eailroad, a State reform 
school has been established, which was opened June 1, 1871. One 
hundred boys have been received as inmates since that date. 


/ 


388 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


The reform school of Illinois differs from similar institutions in other 
States, in the light in which it is regarded by the supreme court, 
namely, as a j prison for juvenile offenders. No boy can be received 
except under sentence of a court, nor can any boy be retained during 
his minority, but all must be discharged on the expiration of the sentence. 
All the inmates have been committed for high crimes, and for periods 
varying from one month to ten years. The average sentence is one year 
and nine months. Under the decision of our supreme court, the in¬ 
stitution fails to meet the design of its originators and best friends; 
but the internal discipline is like that of a reform school, and the 
authorities are allowed to discharge boys on ticket-of-leave. 

Discharged convicts. 

No agency exists in this State for the aid of discharged convicts, nor 
is there any voluntary society to take the place of a State agency. 

Central oversight. 

Illinois has a u board of public charities,’ 7 charged with the duty of 
annual visitation and inspection of all county jails and almshouses 
within her borders, but the commission has no authority or power 
beyond that of inspection and report. 


4. Indiana. 

By Charles F. Coffin. 

The State of Indiana was admitted into the Union in 181G. The pop¬ 
ulation 'was then small, probably not exceeding 20,000. Most of its ter¬ 
ritory was thickly covered with trees, and the labor of clearing and ren¬ 
dering it habitable was great; hence its progress for several years was 
slow. Its inhabitants were mostly farmers, crime was rare, and pun¬ 
ishment speedy and of a primitive character. By a statute of 1807, 
horse-stealing, treason, murder, and arson w T ere punishable with death. 
Whipping might be inflicted for burglary, robbery, larceny, hog-stealing, 
and bigamy, also for striking a parent or master. Provision was made 
for confinement in jail for some offenses. The first jails erected were 
merely small buildings of squared logs so arranged as to keep a crimi¬ 
nal safely. The writer well remembers one of this kind in which a mur¬ 
derer, who was afterward hung, was confined some time. With the grad¬ 
ual growth of the State these were, in most cases, replaced with small 
brick buildings, often with but one secure room, having a small grated 
window, and no other provision for light or ventilation. Into this were 
put indiscriminately all who violated the statutes of the State and sub¬ 
jected themselves to imprisonment. Food was provided and brought 
by the jailer, and of course its quality and quantity depended much 
upon his will, and such attention was paid to the neatness and cleanli¬ 
ness of the cells as he thought proper, subject to an occasional inspec¬ 
tion by the grand jury or county commissioners. Courts were but sel¬ 
dom held, and often prisoners remained several months awaiting trial. 
Many such jails are still found in the agricultural counties where there 
are no large towns and but little crime exists, and they are much of the 
time without a tenant. But the State has grown rapidly and now num- 



PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF INDIANA. 389 


bers about 1,800,000 inhabitants; railroads and turnpikes have been 
constructed in almost every part of it; vast bodies of coal and other 
minerals have been found, which have already given it, in many places, 
the characteristics of a manufacturing and mining community; large 
towns and cities have grown up, and as a natural consequence crime 
lias increased. In some of the county-seats new jails have beeu built, 
in which much more attention has been paid to the laws of health and 
to the physical comfort of the prisoners, and yet too many of these have 
beeu built with iron cells and grated doors, affording little obstruction 
to free conversation and communication among the prisoners; a mis¬ 
taken idea of kindness has caused most jailers during the day to allow 
the prisoners promiscuously to intermingle in the halls and corridors, 
thus opening the way for the hardened criminal to indoctrinate those 
less so, and for the younger to take lessons in crime from the older. 
We believe, however, that as xiublic attention is called to the matter, 
more care will be taken in the construction and management of jails; 
and already, in some counties, fine buildings are being erected for pris¬ 
ons. The prisoners are not required to labor in any of these prisons, 
but are kept in total idleness. Books are sometimes furnished by the 
benevolent, and religious instruction is given occasionally by those who 
do it voluntarily. 

A system of district prisons, in which several of the agricultural coun¬ 
ties are united, for those convicted of minor offenses and for the untried, 
where the prisoners can be kept at labor and some attention given to 
their moral, educational, and religious improvement, is much needed, 
and it is hoped may gradually be introduced. There are ninety-two 
counties in the State; in many of them the jails are untenanted most 
of the year. 

A state prison was first erected at Jeffersonville, opposite Louisville, 
Kentucky, on the Ohio River, about the year 1822. /As was the case with 
many of the county jails, the cells were built of hewed logs about fifteen 
inches square, securely dovetailed together. The doors were of thick oak 
planks bound with iron bands. A hole in the center of the door three inches 
square was the only arrangement for ventilation. The first year there were 
seven convicts; three lessees had charge of them, who received from the 
State a bonus of $300, in addition to the proceeds of the labor of the 
prisoners. In the course of a few years this temporary building was 
followed by a brick one, which was occupied until the present buildiug was 
erected, in 1847 and 1848. It is of brick, and is surrounded by a brick wall 
3 J feet thick and 26 feet high, inclosing about four acres of ground, in 
which are situated the shops as well as cell-houses. The cells are 74 
feet by 4 and 6J feet high, with no light or ventilation except through 
the grated door? There are now four hundred and six prisoners (about 
twenty of whom are women) confined in the prison. The building is 
considered wholly unsuitable, and the directors of the prison and the 
governor of the State unite in urging its abandonment. The system of 
leasing was abandoned in 1856, and the present plan adopted, by which 
the labor of the prisoners is let to contractors at a fixed price per day. 
Most of them are now employed in the manufacture of railroad-cars, 
under the direction of foremen and men furnished by the car company. 

The management and government of the prison is in the hands of a 
board of three directors, elected by the legislature. These directors 
choose a warden, chaplain, physician, and moral instructor. The warden 
has the appointment of a deputy, clerk, and such number of assistant 
keepers as the directors may deem necessary. The discipline at pres¬ 
ent is kind, and the officers efficient and good men. Provision is made 


390 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

by law for the moral instructor to teach such convicts as the warden 
may think proper “the art of reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography.’ 7 
It is the duty of the moral instructor to “ superintend the mental 
and moral improvement of the convicts, instruct them once every Sab¬ 
bath, visit them when sick, have charge of the library, and superin¬ 
tend the distribution and use of the books, and adopt such other means 
for the reformation of the convicts as himself, the warden, and directors- 
may deem expedient.” 

The increase of prisoners, together with the fact that the Jefferson¬ 
ville prison is located at the extreme southern part of the State, led the 
legislature, in 1859, to pass a law for the erection of auother prison, at 
Michigan City, on Lake Michigan, in the north part of the State. This 
has been completed and in operation several years, and now contains 
three hundred and forty-one prisoners. The laws and regulations for 
the government of the Jeffersonville prison are in force for that at Mich¬ 
igan City, and the same methods of labor, discipline, &c., are used. The 
building is a good one, cells well ventilated and lighted, and sufficient 
provision is made for the health and comfort of the prisoners. 

The whole number of convicts in both the state prisons at present is 
seven hundred and twenty-seven men and twenty women. These re¬ 
ceive by law $15 when discharged, “ and every article of value which 
they may have had in their possession when received.” No other pro¬ 
vision is made by law for discharged convicts, nor are there any asso¬ 
ciations in existence for the purpose. A bill is now before the Indiana 
legislature providing for a State board of prison commissioners, which 
shall have charge of the prisons of the State, with a view of bringing 
about a classification of prisoners and other useful improvements in the 
prison system. 

The constitution of Indiana (adopted 1851) contains a clause that 
“ the general assembly shall provide houses of refuge for correction 
and reformation of juvenile offenders.” This was not practically carried 
into effect until 1807, when the legislature passed a law for that purpose, 
in accordance with which a house of refuge for boys was built at Plain- 
field, fourteen miles west of Indianapolis. It is upon the family system 
and has two hundred boys, in four separate family buildings, who are em¬ 
ployed at work on the farm of two hundred and twenty acres; also in 
cane-seating chairs, shoe-making, tailoring, and domestic work. Since the 
opening of the institution about one hundred and sixty boyshave passed 
through it and been discharged, most of whom are filling useful places 
in the community, a few only having fallen back into crime. The re¬ 
sults on the whole have been highly satisfactory. There is a constant 
'pressure for the admission of boys, and it is hoped that the present ses¬ 
sion of the legislature will make an appropriation for its enlargement. 

A law was passed by the general assembly in 1869, establishing 
“ The Indiana Reformatory Institute for Women and Girls,” intended 
as a state prison for women and a girls’ reformatory, in separate depart¬ 
ments, under the same management, and a building has been erected, 
but not yet completed. It is much needed, in order to furnish a place 
for the few women prisoners now confined at Jeffersonville, as well as 
for a girls’ reformatory. 

In four or five of the cities of the State there are “ homes for friend¬ 
less women,” supported by private contributions. 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF IOWA AND KANSAS. 


391 


5. Iowa. 


By Martin Heisey , late warden of the State penitentiary. 

Tiie institutions established in the State of Iowa for the punishment 
and prevention of crime are a state prison, a state reform school, and 
county jails in most of the ninety-eight counties of the State. 

The state prison is at Fort Madison, in the southeastern part of the 
State; but another penal institution is in process of construction at 
Anamosa, near the center. The discipline aims to be at once deterrent 
and reformatory. Experience lias shown that in the great majority of 
cases kindness and appeals to reason and manhood are efficacious with 
the most hardened characters. Special attention is given to cleanliness, 
and the dietary, though plain, is abundant and wholesome. The result 
is that we have very little sickness, and a death very seldom occurs. 
The whole number of prisoners last year was two hundred and eighty, 
of whom only one was a woman. 

The prison has a chaplain, who gives his whole time to the moral and 
religious instruction and reformation of the convicts, preaching to them 
on the Sabbath, and laboring with them personally during the week. 
Every convict is provided with a Bible. 

There is a flourishing Sunday-school in connection with the peniten¬ 
tiary. The average attendance is about two hundred and thirty. The 
school is conducted as Sunday-schools generally are. The citizens in 
the vicinity show their interest by taking part in the instruction. The 
good effects of the Sunday-school are seen in these noteworthy facts. 
First, there is less punishment required to preserve the discipline of the 
prison by more than one-lialf than before the establishment of the 
school. Secondly, the men do more work and do it better. Thirdly, 
alacrity and cheerfulness have taken the place of rnoroseness and sullen 
discontent. 

The common jail system needs great reforms. Numbers of the jails 
are deficient in nearly all the requisites for prisons of that sort. 

A state reform school was established in 1888, at Salem, the results 
of which have been highly gratifying. 


6. Kansas. 

By Henry Hopkins, warden of the State penitentiary. 

It would be difficult to say what is doing, or has been done, through¬ 
out the State, by individuals, outside of the officials immediately con¬ 
nected with the prisou. We have to contend with a very general feel¬ 
ing of indifference as to present or future welfare of those committeed 
to or discharged from prison. This is apt to be greater in new than 
is usually the case in older States. Crime is more prevalent in States 
newly organized, into which the criminal class has been driven by 
advanced civilization from other localities. 

The principal institution organized for the treatment of criminals is 
the State peuitentiary, at Leavenworth, now only about one-third com¬ 
pleted. It is to consist of a main building, composed of two wings of 
250 by GO feet each, with a cell block of four tiers, numbering six hun¬ 
dred and eighty-eight cell sin all. Between these wings will be a building 
80 feet square and four stories high. A v r all 6 feet thick and 24 feet 


392 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


liigh incloses a space of ten acres. This inclosure will contain all the 
necessary out-buildings and workshops. 

The discipline is intended to be reformatory in its administration, the 
prison being conducted on the congregate silent system. Chapel services 
are held every Sabbath, and all prisoners are required to attend. After 
the general services a prisoners’ meeting is held, at which any who wish 
may remain and take a partin the exercises. A school is also organized 
for secular instruction, in which reading, writing, and arithmetic are 
taught to those who are deficient. The prisoners participate in their 
earnings to the amount of about $12 each year, conditioned, however, 
on obedience to the prison rules. The prison is supplied with a well- 
selected library. The prisoners are allowed to apply their earnings for 
the purchase of books and literary papers, or for the benefit of their 
families. 

Commutation, that is, abbreviation of sentence and a restoration to the 
rights of citizenship, are allowed to all who by good conduct merit these 
rewards. Permission is given to write letters once each month, and to 
receive letters once each week from relatives and friends. 

The object is to establish such trades as can be followed in this State 
after discharge, and to every prisoner, whenever possible, is taught 
either an entire trade or so much of a trade as will enable him to gain 
a livelihood when discharged. For the general good of the prisoners 
sedentary trades are excluded as much as possible. 

Punishment is avoided in every case where the same result can be 
obtained by other means. Violations of prison rules are always noticed 
in some manner, and the punishment of offenders is only administered 
by the warden or his deputy. Close attention is paid to the physical 
requirements of the prisoners, and a ready and diligent performance of 
labor is demanded. The intention is to make the prison pay all expenses, 
and, if possible, to produce a revenue, because we believe that so the 
prisoners may be most certainly reformed. 

Employment is provided for as many as desire it, on discharge, when¬ 
ever it can be found. This duty devolves especially on the chaplain, 
who resides at the prison and devotes his entire time to the duties of his 
office. 

The contract system is not in use here, the industries being carried 
on by the State, w ith the exception of twelve men. This I consider far 
preferable to contracting, as it is seldom that a contractor takes any 
interest in the reformation of the prisoners, his great aim being to make 
as much money out of them as possible. The idea of the discipline in 
this prison is to make better men of those sent to it, and at the same 
time to so administer it as to deter others from making it necessary to 
send them here. Make it corrective, and you thereby make it repul¬ 
sive. Correction is naturally repugnant to the human heart. 

We have, as yet, no preventive institution in Kansas under that 
name, but the Home for Friendless Women, at Leavenworth, subserves 
that end very effectively, as far as it goes, as the follow ing extract from 
its first report shows : 

Much good has been accomplished by this agency, as it has been the means of saving 
many from a criminal life. 

Two years since the Kansas legislature gave $10,000 with which to build a “ Home.” 
The city of Leavenworth gave lots worth $2,000, on which to build. The edifice is 
now completed. It is 43 by 36 feet, composed of four stories, including basement; is 
of brick, and of tasteful design. It was formally opened October 3, 1871, and has met 
the needs of the association. With barn, fences, substantial stone walk, and grounds 
filled with fruit trees and shrubbery, it is an ornament to the city, and stands a per¬ 
petual encomium of the liberality and charity of the State which builc and the towns 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MAINE. 393 


which furnished it. There is no endowment, and no one connected with the institu¬ 
tion receives a dollar’s pay for time or labor, except its matron. Even our physicians’ 
onerous services are gratuitous. It has extended aid to over two hundred and fifty 
women. During the last year one hundred and ten have been admitted, and twenty 
children have been born under its roof. Of these inmates comparatively few have 
belonged to Leavenworth. The poor and friendless, whom we feed, shelter, and 
befriend, are not ours alone. They come from other towns and neighborhoods. They 
comprise respectable women who reach Leavenworth out of money, and needing tem¬ 
porary help, a few meals and lodging, until they can hear from friends. Or they are 
forsaken wives, who, perhaps, find themselves on the eve of maternity without friends 
or shelter. Often they are young girls from the country seeking employment, and 
while doing so come to us for refuge, and if we fail to give it they are easily found 
of “her whose house inclineth unto death and her paths to the dead.” We also have 
many cases of young girls from other localities, who leave their homes hoping to hide 
their shame among the crowds of a strange city. Caring for these through the hour 
of w oman’s greatest trial—and, when they wish it, adopting their children—we can 
often save those unpitied mothers from further degradation, and return them to their 
homes and better lives. 

And last, but not least, we wish to keep open a refuge for the only class against 
which a cold world seems savagely to bar the door of reform —fallen but repentant 
women. 

There are two orphan asylums (one Protestant and one Catholic) 
organized in the State, which are doing much good for the outcast youth¬ 
ful population. Good homes are secured for all when they arrive at 
suitable ages, and they are watched over after discharge from the in¬ 
stitutions. 

It is in contemplation to organize a house of refuge at an early day. 
All these indications show that the people are becoming aroused to the 
necessity of providing for existing wrongs. 

Our system of free schools is not excelled by that of any State in the 
Union, and its fund is inexhaustible. Two State normal schools are now 
organized, and every school district in the State has its substantial 
school-building, and is supplied with competent teachers. 

Compulsory education is gaining favor throughout the State. This, 
if properly applied, will act as a great preventive of crime. Would it 
not be well to re-establish the old Jewish law, and require every boy to 
learn a trade, as it is seldom, indeed, that a good mechanic is sent to 
prison from any cause i 


7. Maine. 

By Rev. J. K. Mason, former chaplain of the state prison. 

The State of Maine was formerly a “ district of Massachusetts," and, 
singular as it may seem, presented the phenomenon of a district several 
times larger than the State to which it belonged. In 1820 it became 
itself a State. 

In regard to penal and reformatory institutions, Maine is behind several 
of her sister States. This results in part from having given her atten¬ 
tion more to the causes than the cure of crime ; to what makes criminals 
of men than to what will make men of criminals. The grand question 
has been how to preserve her population industrious, sober, and moral, 
and thus safe and prosperous. Thus reformatory systems and discipline 
have been somewhat overlooked, until of late. Maine is clear in her 
conviction that something more is to be done for her fallen ones, but is 
nevertheless quite as clear that she must look first at the causes of their 
tall. The so-called Maine law in regard to the sale of intoxicating 
liquors is one of the results of this eon victon, and not a mere u fanatical 



394 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF lh73. 

whim,” as some have thought. If it be true, as facts demonstrate, that 
at least three-fourths of all the convicts in the State penitentiary are 
there through the influence of intoxicating liquors, it has seemed that 
wise men, and certainly good men, could not be at a loss where to apply 
some State force. The wonder is that any are blind enough, either 
through prejudice or ignorance, to suffer an evil that is so monstrous to 
continue its havoc and necessitate these penal institutions everywhere 
as exponents of its accursed entail. 

The State penitentiary is located at Thomaston, and is in a condition 
of great industrial and financial prosperity. In this respect, the past 
year has exceeded every other in its history. I think I hazard nothing 
in saying that it is unexcelled. It is conducted on the congregate plan, 
and every man who is physically able must work at some trade, which 
he is stimulated in various ways to become master of, so that he may 
have resources within himself that will in the future diminish his temp¬ 
tation to crime. His educational and religious wants are so cared for, 
under the direction of a chaplain, that he has no excuse for further igno¬ 
rance or wickedness. The amount of instruction, however, in both, 
might be largcty increased by means of additional facilities. The sani¬ 
tary arrangements are good ; food plenty and wholesome; an occasional 
holiday granted, when a sumptuous dinner is given and opportunity af¬ 
forded for social intercourse for an hour or two, under the eye of the officers 
and a few friends. Personal cleanliness is insisted on as a virtue indis¬ 
pensable to both physical and moral health. It is the aim of the gov¬ 
ernment in all its rules and practical applications to inspire courage in ' 
the convicts—to lift them into as high a measure of manhood as possible 
with their present surroundings—and to fit those whose sentences are 
not perpetual to go forth to society and the world again with habits of 
patient industry, a remunerative trade, and some educational acquire¬ 
ments ; controlled by principles or purposes of integrity and sobriety, 
and stimulated to a faith and hope that will help them through a great 
many unavoidable difficulties and discouragements. 

The Hon. W. W. Rice, who has been warden for the past nine years, 
not believing in the policy of the contract system of labor, has held the 
specific control of the industrial and business matters in his own hands, 
giving personal attention to the various details. He believes that that 
has been one of the grand secrets of its industrial and financial success. 
Under a less energetic and able financier, the balance-sheet might show 
footings not so favorable. 

The warden is appointed by the governor and council for the term 
of four years, and has control and is made responsible for all the 
subordinate officers, concurrently with the inspectors. One of the 
inspectors, who are also appointed by the executive of the State, is 
required to visit the prison at least once each month, and the entire 
board once in three months, to make careful investigation in regard 
to all the interests of the prison. There is a commutation law by 
which the executive may deduct a certain portion from the sentence of 
every convict for industry and obedience. This operates as a constant 
incentive to all who are not utterly and hopelessly incorrigible. 

The present number of convicts is one hundred and sixty-four, one- 
fifth of whom are under twenty-one years of age. About two-thirds 
under twenty-seven. 

Our county jails are by no means what they should be, but I forbear 
a description of them as they are, since they are now undergoing care¬ 
ful study, and the probability is that they will be speedily reconstructed 
in such manner, as to have connected therewith facilities for vari- 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MAINE. 395 

ous industries, and for classifying their inmates; and some of them 
appointed as places of detention, discipline, industry, and other appli¬ 
ances of penal and reformatory treatment for a class of criminals 
whose antecedents hardly warrant the practice hitherto followed of 
degrading them as the worst of criminals by commitment to the state 
prison. 

Our State Reform School lor Boys is located at Cape Elizabeth, a 
suburb of the city of Portland, and is at present in charge of the Rev. 
E. W. Hutchinson as superintendent. It has existed for nineteen years 
and been attended with somewhat varied success. This school, for cer¬ 
tain reasons, does not accomplish all that was hoped from it. One of 
these is, doubtless, to be found in the statutory provision that, under 
certain specified circumstances, the several towns or cities patronizing 
it shall contribute $1 per week for each inmate they furnish. The result 
is that they send as few as possible, and the rural towns ignore it almost 
wholly. Of the fifty-nine commitments the past year nearly one-half 
were from the single city of Portland. From three other principal cities 
not a single commitment was recorded. If that provision of the statute 
were repealed and another substituted requiring the parents to pay such 
a part of the expense as the town or city assessors might consider them 
able to do, a demand of justice would be met, a difficulty remedied, 
and, perhaps, a stimulus created that would operate favorably in regard 
to home discipline. 

This institution is conducted after the congregate system ; is under 
the general direction of a board of trustees, who appoint the superin¬ 
tendent and assistant superintendent, matron, physician, and chaplain, 
and all the subordinate officers, and assign their position and duties. 
The whole is under the general supervision of the governor and council. 
There is a large farm connected therewith, the cultivation of which is 
carried on by the labor of the boys with a moderate degree of success. 
The shoe business affords employment for a score or two of the boys, 
and chair-bottoming for as many more; and a large number of the 
youngest are employed at knitting, sewing, &c., for the older ones. The 
various other kinds of work about the institution are done by the in¬ 
mates, under the direction of departmental overseers. The educational 
department is in charge of several teachers, selected with reference to 
the different grades, according to which the inmates are classified. 
Most of the boys make good proficiency. 

The Sabbath-school work is carried on by the voluntary efforts of 
Christian men and women from the city. Based on the influence of this 
and on the acquiring of habits of industry, of which, on entering, nearly 
all are destitute, the friends have learned to recognize their main 
reliance for reform. At the close of 1871 the school numbered one 
hundred and thirty-four, twenty-six less than the x>receding year. The 
whole number committed in eighteen years of its history is one thou¬ 
sand two hundred and eighty-one, of ages varying from seven to nine¬ 
teen years; 

Of the whole number, more than one-third had intemperate parents; 
another third had relatives in prison ; two-thirds were habitually idle. 
More than two-fifths were truants; nearly one half were Sabbath- 
breakers; more than three-fourths were untruthful, and more than 
two-thirds were profane: a sad commentary on the places many children 
are allowed to call “ home,” and still worse on the character of their 
parents. 

The institution is sustained by the products of its own labor as far 
as that will go; the residue, about one-half or two-thirds of the expenses, 


396 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


being provided for by appropriations direct from the State treasury. 
All its business transactions are conducted on the cash basis. 

An industrial school for girls is partially inaugurated, and it is ex¬ 
pected that the current year will see it in operation. 

Maine believes that penalty should be administered as far as possible 
in the interest of reform. 


8. Maryland. 

By G. S. Griffith, president of the Maryland Prisoners’ Aid Association. 

The prominent penal reformatory and preventive institutions of Mary¬ 
land are situated in the city of Baltimore and its immediate vicinity. 

The prisons, properly so called, are the State penitentiary, the Bal¬ 
timore jail, and twenty-one other jails in the several counties additional 
to that of Baltimore. 

The State penitentiary is in Baltimore. The whole number in the prison 
at the close of 1872 was 598; of whom 541 were males, and 57 females; of 
the males, 371 were colored ; of the females, 52. There were received 
‘into the prison in 1869,317 prisoners; in 1870,280; in 1871,262; in 
1872, 188. This statement would indicate a gradual decrease of crime 
in Maryland within the last four years. 

While the discipline is positively deterrent, it earnestly aims to be 
reformatory. The agencies employed are moral suasion, positive discip¬ 
line, labor , and rewards. Rewards, however, are more relied upon than 
punishments, and wil h the best results. 

The general condition of criminals in point of education, on their com¬ 
mitment, is lamentable. Unhappily no systematic effort is made for their 
mental improvement while in prison. The penitentiary, however, con¬ 
tains a very good library for the use of the convicts. 

The labor of the prisoners is let to contractors. It is believed that 
this institution will be hereafter self-sustaining, the opportunities and 
organization of labor having been improved by the enlargement of the 
workshops. 

There are no religious agencies officially employed, but the Prisoners’ 
Aid Association, to be hereafter spoken of, takes charge of this work. 
It has established two flourishing Sunday-schools in the prison, which 
are taught by ladies and gentlemen who volunteer their services. These 
religious exercises are much prized by the prisoners, and excite the 
lively interest of all who witness them. Sacred music is taught to the 
prisoners as an element of reform. On Sunday afternoons the male and 
female convicts are assembled in separate chapels for divine service. 
The officiating ministers are selected from different denominations. It 
is optional with the prisoners to attend or not. Three hundred and forty- 
three availed themselves of the privilege last year. 

The Baltimore City Jail is a substantial stone building, of striking 
architectural proportions. In its construction and arrangements it may 
be regarded as a model institution. Most of the other county jails are 
defective in all the attributes of a good prison. Under the auspices of 
the aid association, religious exercises are regularly conducted on Sun¬ 
day afternoons in the chapel of the Baltimore jail. 

The reformatory and preventive institutions of Maryland are the 
Baltimore House of Refuge, the Maryland Inebriate Asylum, the Home 
of the Good Shepherd for Women, the Maryland Industrial School for 



PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MARYLAND. 397 


Girls, the Home for Fallen Women, the Saint Mary’s Industrial School 
for Boys, the Manual Labor School, the Children’s Aid Society for Boys 
and Girls, the Home of the Friendless for Children, and the House of 
Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children. 

The House of Refu ge is situated two miles from Baltimore, in a high 
and heal thy location. The building is constructed with a view to de¬ 
velop the physical as well as the moral and mental growth of the 
inmates. This is the most important reformatory in Maryland for juve¬ 
nile delinquents. It is designed to receive the youth of our State who 
become too insubordinate to be governed by their parents or guardians, 
and for those who are sentenced by the criminal courts and magistrates 
for committing public olfenses. They are sent to the care of this insti¬ 
tution until they become of age, unless otherwise provided for by the 
board of managers in consideration of great moral improvement, which 
often occurs under the excellent administration of the superintendent, 
Mr. William R. Lincoln. 

Religious instruction is given without any denominational bias. 
The institution contains a commodious chapel. Divine service is con¬ 
ducted every Sunday afternoon by clergymen invited from various de¬ 
nominations. The congregational singing is led by Mrs. Lincoln, the 
worthy wife of the superintendent, who presides on all occasions with 
perfect command of the organ. 

The usual exercises of a Sunday-school are regularly observed; the 
helpers in this good work consist of a faithful corps of teachers, who go 
out from the city every Sunday morning. 

Music is a particular element of education of the boys. They have 
organized a brass band, which is the source of much pleasure on public 
days and festive occasions. They are frequently invited to the city, to 
play at fairs, and other entertainments held for benevolent purposes. 
The other branches taught are those of a primary common school. The 
larger boys receive instruction equal in grade to that of the grammar- 
schools, including the elements of natural philosophy, physiology, alge¬ 
bra, &c. The refuge is at once a benevolent, reformatory, and educa¬ 
tional institution. Since it was opened in 1855, 2,159 minors have 
passed under its control, of whom 1,942 were boys, and 217 were girls. 
At tbe present date there remain under care 331, of whom 315 are boys 
and 16 girls. 

Labor is found to be a most desirable adjunct in the effort of reform. 
The workshop, next to the Sunday-school and secular instruction, is the 
best corrective of evil habits. Here the boys are employed in the har¬ 
ness shop, shoe shop, tailor’s shop, broom and basket shop, in caning 
chair-seats, &c., and in farming and gardening, besides assisting in the 
work of the household. The products of the farm and garden last year 
amounted to $2,248.28. The institution is in part self-supporting, yield¬ 
ing a profit from the mechanical labor of the inmates. 

The Saint Mary’s Industrial School for the city of Baltimore is a 
Roman Catholic institution. Its object is to receive, teach, and train to 
virtue and industry orphans and other destitute boys. It has an impos¬ 
ing building and a farm of one hundred acres. The boys are committed 
to this school, not for crime, but on account of destitution and to pre¬ 
vent crime. It has received in all two hundred and sixty-nine boys, of 
wdiom fifty-one have been apprenticed to farmers. 

The Baltimore Manual Labor School, for indigent boys, was estab¬ 
lished in 1842, and has had an average of forty-five boys. It is neither 
penal nor reformatory, but preventive. It receives only orphans or 
half-orphans. It has a farm of one hundred and forty acres. The 


398 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

boys, on leaving tlie institution, are apprenticed to some mechanic or 
farmer. 

The Boys’ Home is not a reformatory, such as the house of refuge, 
nor is it a house of correction, where coercion or force can be employed 
to compel obedience. It is a large household, wherein obedience is recog¬ 
nized as a duty, and love is the incentive to its exercise. Like any well- 
regulated family circle, it has its daily separations and reunions. After 
breakfast each member goes out to his appointed labor. The directors 
find the system of encouraging volunteer labor to work admirably. 
The boys are assisted to find work, and get fair wages. Most of them 
are learning mechanical trades. Those who have employment are 
charged the small board of $1.75 per week. The balance of their earn¬ 
ings is put into a savings-box until the end of the year, and then returned 
to them. This arrangement generates feelings of independence and 
self-respect. Under the genial influences of the Home, they are taught 
habits of economy, cleanliness, virtue, industry, obedience, and self- 
reliance. It prevents vagrancy, pauperism, crime, and juvenile delin¬ 
quency. This is a great saving to taxpayers, and sound political 
economy. 

The Maryland Industrial School for Girls is designed to rescue girls 
between twelve and eighteen years of age, who have lost their virtue or 
are in danger of losing it, from vagrancy and exposure to evil influ¬ 
ences. Since the opening, in 1868, seventy-two girls have been received. 
The discipline of the school is that of a Christian family. Its law is 
kindness. There are no walls or bolts. No corporeal punishment is 
permitted. Deprivation of privileges and meals, with detention of the 
refractory in her room until penitent, is sufficient. The ordinary 
branches of a common-school education are taught, with singing and 
Bible lessons. Instruction is also given in all branches of household 
labor, and in canning fruits and vegetables. The improvement of the 
girls in all respects has been very marked and gratifying while in the 
institution. Thirty-four have been restored to their friends, twenty- 
three have been provided with situations, two have died; the rest are 
either now in the school, or have been discharged for disease or other 
causes. Religious instruction has been regularly given. 

The Children’s Aid Society is a recognized temporary asylum for all 
truant and stray children picked up in the streets by the police, and for 
children whose parents have been committed to the jail or almshouse for 
disorderly conduct or vagrancy. In many cases they receive food and 
shelter until they are found by their parents, or reclaimed by others 
after they are released from confinement. Since the institution was 
opened, in 1860, 1,092 children have received its protection. At present 
330 are in good homes provided for them either in Maryland or in the 
neighboring States of Pennsylvania and Virginia-. Their foster-parents, 
or those who take them in charge, are required by the board of mana¬ 
gers to make monthly reports concerning their welfare. 

The Home for the Friendless is a preventive institution under a board 
of lady managers. It receives small boys and girls, the neglected, de¬ 
serted, unhealthy, maimed, crippled, and also the incurably afflicted. 
The total number of inmates received since it was organized is 1,012. 
Of these there remain at present date 130, many of whom are under 
eight years of age. 

The House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children was 
incorporated by the general assembly of Maryland at the January ses¬ 
sion, 1870. Maryland has a large colored population, especially since 
the emancipation of slaves. This population, which has heretofore been 


PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MARYLAND. 399 

deprived of the benefits of education, is now thrown upon us in a de¬ 
plorable state of ignorance. Ignorance, idle habits, and crime generally 
go hand-in-hand together, and become an element of danger to the com¬ 
munity. The board of visitors of the Baltimore city jail report the fol¬ 
lowing commitments of colored persons during the past year : For the 
violation of the peace and for drunkenness, 1,890: for larceny, 375; for 
vagrancy, 70; in all, 2,335, many of whom were children between the 
age of eight and ten years. 

A farm, containing 700 acres, in Prince George’s County, has been 
purchased for this institution. Appropriations have been made by the 
State legislature of $10,000 for two succeeding years, making a total 
of $20,000. Twenty thousand dollars additional have been contributed 
for this object by Enoch Pratt, esq., and ten thousand dollars more by 
subscription. 

Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the preventive and reforma¬ 
tory institutions of Maryland. 

Wliat is the chief cause of crime ! Neglect of the early right training 
of children. What is the chief preventive of crime ? Increase the forces 
a hundredfold to save the children. The unrestrained boys and girls 
of our community are the roots of that cancer which grows into public 
injury. It is a sad, stern truth that some of those who are now boys 
anti girls are to be the paupers and criminals of the future. No one 
doubts that many noble and useful citizens come from the ranks of the 
poor. Yet it is no less true that paupers and criminals spring almost 
entirely from the untrained outcasts of society, such as neglected 
orphans, children of drunkards, the illegitimate children of prisoners 
and paupers, and the children of thieves. 

The situation of the reformatory and preventive institutions of Mary¬ 
land is a subject worthy of note. They are located in the most healthy 
sections of the city or county of Baltimore, on broad streets, wide ave¬ 
nues, or eligible farms, the sanitary advantages having been always 
considered in selecting a site. The buildings are erected on high 
grounds, affording spacious yards or areas for exercise during the hours 
of recreation. They are constructed with large windows, wide pas¬ 
sages, and broad stairways, with a view to obtain the unobstructed rays 
of light from the rising to the setting of the sun, and a free and full cir¬ 
culation of pure air. It is a fact which marks the history of these 
various institutions, that the inmates are exempt in an extraordinary 
manner from epidemics or even sporadic diseases. Their list of mor¬ 
tality records fewer deaths than occur iu common households among the 
same number of children and youth. 

Experience teaches that the essential elements of health will promote 
the moral as well as the physical growth of human nature. The genial 
influences of air and sunshine will penetrate the heart and generate 
kindly feelings, stimulate bright thoughts, and excite the hands to useful 
works. 

The work of aiding discharged prisoners is well organized in this 
State. The Maryland Prisone rs’ Aid Society was established early in 
1869, and has Been ever since working with zeal, efficiency, and success. 
The sphere of action of this society begins in the State penitentiary, 
and extends to all the jails and almshouses throughout the State of 
Maryland. The officers and wardens seem willing to co-operate in any 
measures the association may suggest to improve the condition of the 
inmates under their charge. The principles on which it works, and the 
work itself, have secured the hearty approval of both the criminal courts 
and the prison authorities, as the following testimonies abundantly prove. 


400 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Judge Gilmor, of tlie criminal court of Baltimore, says: “I take great 
interest in the successful operations of this society, which I regard as 
one of the best and most important of our public charities. It has 
already accomplished much good, and if the welfare of that large class 
whose condition it is its aim to relieve, is not deriving all the benefit it 
should, it is only because enough of our charitable citizens have not as 
yet come forward to unite in and contribute toward the objects pro¬ 
posed by the association.” 

In their last annual report the board of visitors of the Baltimore city 
jail-remark: “The Prisoners’Aid Association, of which Rev. Penfield 
Doll is the agent, and whose benevolent work among the fallen and 
guilty it has more than once been our pleasure to acknowledge, is con- 
tinuously at work, and making its influence for good widely felt.” 


9. Massachusetts. 

By F. B. Sanborn, member of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities. 

Massachusetts, which by the census of 1870 had a population of 1,457,- 
351, now contains more than a million and a half inhabitants, of whom 
only about 14,000 are colored persons, while nearly 400,000 are of foreign 
birth, and more than 630,000 of foreign parentage. It has been estima¬ 
ted that from 25,000 to 30,000 of these inhabitants belong to what may 
be called the criminal class, including drunkards and vagrants, who, 
under Massachusetts laws, are punishable with imprisonment. The 
actual number of different persons imprisoned in a single year (exclusive 
of pupils in reformatories) is now probably about 15,000, and steadily 
increasing. The number of persons convicted of greater and smaller 
offenses, in 1872, was about 8,000, probably; but of these only 160 were 
sent to the state prison at Charlestown. The average number in all the 
prisons, commonly so-called, including persons waiting trial, or held as 
witnesses, was 3,218, of whom 543 were in the Charlestown prison, and 
298 in the State work-house at Bridgewater, making 841 under direct 
State control; something less than 2,000 were in houses of correction 
and other convict prisons under city and county control, and 429 were 
in the county jails. The whole number in prison in Massachusetts on 
the 1st of January, 1873, was about 3,280; namely, 576 in the state 
prison at Charlestown, 228 at the Bridgewater State work house, 1,440 
in thirteen county houses of correction, 582 in the Boston work-house 
or house of industry, and 454 in seventeen county jails. Add to these 
the number temporarily imprisoned that day in guard-houses, police- 
stations, &c., and the aggregate would exceed 3,350. The figures of the 
census of 1870, in regard to crime in Massachusetts, are very incorrect. 

The number in the State, city, and county prisons, exclusive of the 
guard-houses and station-houses, on the 1st of October, 1872, was re¬ 
ported as 3,461, of whom 562 were at Charlestown, 267 at Bridgewater, 
657 in the Boston house of industry, 440 in the South Boston house of 
correction, 250 in the Boston jail, 266 in the Cambridge house of correc¬ 
tion, 152 in the New Bedford house of correction, and 112 in that at 
Ipswich. The whole number in the jails was then 552 ; in the houses of 
correction 1,423: and the aggregate, 3,461, was the largest ever reported 
in Massachusetts. 

In the three large public reformatories of Massachusetts, the State 
Reform Schools at Westborough and Lancaster, and the Boston House 



PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


401 


of Reformation, controlled by the city, the whole number of inmates, 
January 1,1873, was 725, namely: 297 boys at Westborough, 128 girls 
at Lancaster, and 300 (boys 2G0, girls 40) at Boston. The average 
number for the year 1872 was something more than this, namely: 207 
at Westborough, 122 at Lancaster, 75 at the School-Ship, (now discon¬ 
tinued,) and 280 at Boston; in all about 740. The average number confined 
in prisons and reformatories in Massachusetts may therefore be stated in 
round numbers at about 4,000, though there are a few small city reform- 
schools which would bring the aggregate above that amount. In the pre¬ 
ventive schools, such as the State Primary School at Monson, with an 
average last year of 361, the House of the Angel Guardian, (a Roman 
Catholic school,) in Boston, with an average of 175 pupils, the Boston 
Farm School, with 100 pupils, and a few other establishments, there 
were between 700 and 1,000 inmates. Therefore the constant popula¬ 
tion of the penal, reformatory, and preventive establishments in Massa¬ 
chusetts, public and private, may be taken as not exceeding 5,000, or 
one in every 300 of the inhabitants. 

The prisons. 

I. The Charlestown state prison is one of the oldest in the country, 
having been begun in 1800, and opened in 1804. It has been conducted 
on the Auburn, or silent congregate system, since 1827, when it was re¬ 
built, but has since been much enlarged, containing now about 600 
cells. A plan has been submitted to the legislature of 1873 for build¬ 
ing a new state prison at a greater distance from Boston, and it is 
probable that the Charlestown site will be abandoned within the next 
five years. 

No women have been sentenced to Charlestown for more than fifty 
years, or since 1820, and no man is sentenced there for a less period 
than one year. Of 562 convicts there, October 1, 1872, 62 were sen¬ 
tenced for life, 11 for twenty years and upwards, 50 for ten years, 31 
for periods between ten and twenty years, 106 for five years, 84 for pe¬ 
riods between five and ten years, 104 for three years, 47 for periods be¬ 
tween three and fi ve years, and 65 for less than three years. The num¬ 
ber of colored prisoners was 40; 97 were born in Ireland, 30 in Great 
Britain, 21 in the British-American provinces, and 382 in the United 
States; of these, however, nearly one-lialf were probably of foreign pa¬ 
rentage. Of the 562, 77 were recommitments, and of 160 convicts re¬ 
ceived in 1872, 24 were recommitments. The whole number in prison 
during the year was 703, of whom 19 died, 16 were pardoned, 3 sent to 
lunatic hospitals, and 1 escaped. The average number in prison being 
543, an average of 91 were reported as unfit for contract labor. The 
other 452 convicts earned by contract labor the sum of $126,010, or 
about $10,000 more than it cost to support the prison. The average price 
per day for contract labor was 99 cents, which is believed to be 41 cents 
less than its real value to the contractors. The expenses of the Charles¬ 
town prison for the year 1872 were about $116,000, of which something less 
than $800 was paid for the education of prisoners, about $37,000 for pro¬ 
visions, and $42,362 for the salaries of officers. A school numbering 
from 100 to 150 convicts is held about two evenings in the week, and 
there is a Sunday-school of something more than 100 convicts. The 
number of volumes in the prison library is 2,236, of which about 100 are 
daily lent to the convicts. 

II. The Bridgewater state workhouse is a new institution, being cre¬ 
ated in 1866, and opened the same year in tbe old buildings of the state 

H. Ex. 185-26 



402 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 8173 


almshouse at Bridgewater, near Plymouth. Its inmates are mostly 
drunkards, vagrants, prostitutes, &c., who apply to the State or to the 
muuicipalities for support, and are sentenced to support themselves 
by labor. A great majority of them are women, and it is proposed 
by Governor Washburn, in his last message, now before the legis¬ 
lature, to make this workhouse a prison for women exclusively. It is, 
in fact, a prison of the same grade as the county houses of correction 
and the Boston House of Industry. The whole number of convicts 
therein 1872 was 500; the average number was 298, and the cost of 
their support was $34,602. Their earnings from labor were $1,054, and 
the net cost of their support was about $33,000. 

III. The Boston House of Industry was established about forty years 
ago, and is the city prison of Boston for vagrants, drunkards, prosti¬ 
tutes, &c., containing more convicts than any other prison in the State. 
A majority of these are women, as in the state workhouse. The aver¬ 
age number of both sexes in 1872 was 570, the cost of supporting them 
$76,853, and the earnings from their labor $13,987, showing a net cost 
of $62,866. This prison, like the South Boston House of Correction, is 
controlled by the city authorities. 

IV. The county prisons are numerous and various, there being four¬ 
teen counties in Massachusetts, and each being entitled, should it need 
them, to maintain one or more jails, and as many houses of correction. 
The distinction between these two classes of prisons in law is simply 
that in our jails labor is not required, while it is compulsory in houses' 
of correction. But in practice (although a few persons are still sen¬ 
tenced to jails) convicts alone go to houses of correction, and persons 
awaiting trial, or the execution of sentence, remain in jails. Where 
the sentence is a fine, as in more than half the cases tried in Massachu¬ 
setts it probably is, the person fined, if unable or unwilling to pay it, 
generally goes to jail for a short time. There are, in fact, eighteen 
jails and sixteen houses of correction in the fourteen counties, which 
were used as prisons in 1872; but of these only four jails (at Boston, 
Salem, Lowell, and Newburyport) and two houses of correction (at Ips¬ 
wich and South Boston) were separate establishments. The other 
fourteen county prisons contained each a jail and house of correction 
under the same roof and management, so that there are but twenty dis¬ 
tinct county prisons, which are located two at Boston, and one each at 
Barnstable, Pittsfield, New Bedford, Edgartown, Ipswich, Lawrence, 
Newbury port, Salem, Greenfield, Springfield, Northampton, Cambridge, 
Lowell, Nantucket, Dedham, Plymouth, Fitchburgh, and Worcester. 
At Taunton a new jail is building, to replace an old one. The number 
of prisoners in these twenty establishments ranges from one to four 
hundred and fifty in each, and almost every variety of prison architec¬ 
ture and prison management, except the best, may be found in them. 
The largest jail is in Boston, situated on the Charles River, between 
the two bridges leading to Cambridge, and contaiuiug an average of 
more than two hundred prisoners, whose support in 1872 cost not far 
from $25,000, or nearly $2.50 a week per capita. The largest house of 
correction is also in Boston, with an average number of convicts, in 
1872, of 420, who earned $7,733 above their expenses; The whole num¬ 
ber committed to all the jails was above 6,000, to the houses of correc¬ 
tion above 5,000, but many were identical in the two classes of prisons. 
The average number in all the jails was 429; in all the houses of cor¬ 
rection, 1,372; in all the county prisons, 1,801. The cost of all these, 
above their earnings, was $154,711. There was paid for officers’ sal¬ 
aries in these county prisons, $82,000; for provisions, $103,000; for 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


403 


purposes of education, mostly chaplains’ salaries, $2,700; for clothing* 
and bedding, $21,500; for fuel and lights, $40,000. The average net 
cost for each prisoner was within a fraction of $80 a year, or nearly 
$1.70 a week. 

The gross expenditure was $283,847, and the earnings from labor 
$129,430. The difference between these two aggregates represents the 
net cost, as above given. A little more than one in ten of the jail 
prisoners are women, and nearly one third of these are in the houses of 
correction. More than one-half of both sexes were foreign-born, and 
probably four-fifths were of foreign parentage. 

An attempt is now making, in the legislature of 1873, to change 
materially the management of the county prisons. To show the need 
of some better system than exists at present, a passage may be quoted 
from a paper submitted from the United States to the London Prison 
Congress of last July : 

There is no Fetter illustration, probably, of the whimsical lack of all proper 
centralization of prison authority in the United States, than the present condition of 
the laws and. their administration, as regards prison inspection and management in 
Massachusetts—the State which is often considered, and certainly considers itself, as 
foremost in prison discipline, not only in America, but in the whole world. In some 
respects, no doubt, Massachusetts holds an advanced position, but whether this is true 
of her system of prison management may be judged from the facts now to be stated. 
Within her borders are three distinct classes of prisons—those of the State, of the 
fourteen counties, and of the cities and towns. There are two state prisons, viz, at 
Charlestown, near Boston, and at Bridgewater, not far from Plymouth, wholly distinct 
in their management, except that the board of State charities, which has the power 
of discharge at Bridgewater, has the general inspection of both, but with no authority 
to appoint officers or to establish rules in either. The governor and council of the 
State have also general powers of inspection, and can pardon convicts in the Charles¬ 
town prison, as well as appoint the chief officers of both state prisons. But, besides 
these two boards of inspection, there is also a board of inspectors for Charlestown, and 
another for Bridgewater, quite independent of each other; and these two boards, in 
concert with the warden or master of either prison, manage all the details of its affairs, 
and report both to the governor of the State and to the board of State charities. 
There is a prison commission also, which has no duties concerning the Charlestown 
prison, but which may visit and inspect the other; there is an “ advisory board” of 
ladies, to assist the prison commission ; and, finally, there is every year a prison com¬ 
mittee of the State legislature, which visits and reports upon both state prisons, but 
has no power to do anything further. Thus there are seven distinct commissions to 
look after these two prisons, including in all no less than thirty-seven official persons, 
all more or less charged with the duty of inspection, but without any practical co¬ 
operation with, or subordination to, each other. Then there are fourteen counties in 
the State, each containing one jail, and several containing two or three each, which 
are under the control of the county sheriffs, chosen by the people, for terms of three 
years, and of a board of commissioners in each county chosen in the same way. But 
in the largest county (Suffolk) and the smallest (Nantucket) there are no county com¬ 
missioners, the municipal governments of Boston and of Nantucket Town taking their 
place. These jails are also inspected by the board of charities (when it chooses) and 
by the prison commission, the advisory board, and the prison committee of the legis¬ 
lature; and may be inspected by the governor, who has power to remove the county 
sheriff's. There are nineteen of these jails, each controlled and inspected by six dif¬ 
ferent boards, including in all about seventy-five official persons. Then there are 
fifteen other county prisons for convicts, called houses of correction, thirteen of which 
are managed by the county commissioners above mentioned ; one by the “selectmen” 
of Nantucket Town; and one, the largest of all, by a Boston board, called the directors 
of public institutions of the city of Boston; which also has under its control another 
great Boston prison, known as the house of industry. In each county the commissioners 
appoint another board, called overseers of the house of correction, who are to inspect 
those prisons and have some control of their management; these number in all about 
forty, and the Boston board has twelve members, thus adding some fifty more official 
persons to the long list. All the houses of correction may be visited and inspected by 
the board of charities, the prison commission, the advisory board, and the prison com¬ 
mittee, as well as each by its own overseers and commissioners, or directors, and by 
the governor and council, who have the pardoning power jointly with the overseers ; 
so that there are eight distinct boards, comprising about T20 persons for these fifteen 


404 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1673. 


prisons. The Boston house of industry, however, is exempt from all inspection save 
by its own directors and the prison committee of the legislature. Next come the city 
and town guard houses, or police stations, of which, perhaps, there are one hundred 
and twenty in the whole State, under the charge of the municipal governments, and 
rarely inspected by anybody else. The managers of these small prisons probably num¬ 
ber about 300, and are annually elected by the people. Finally, there are the city and 
town work-houses, large and small, numbering, perhaps, a dozen in all, and managed 
by a few of the same 300 municipal officers. In all, we may count up for the Massa¬ 
chusetts prisons not less than 350 different official persons concerned in their manage¬ 
ment and inspection; the number of prisoners in them all never exceeding 3,500 at 
any one time. 

From this we might infer that the Massachusetts prisons were thoroughly inspected, 
however perplexing might be the system under which it was done. But, in fact, there 
is no municipal inspector who has been in all the municipal prisons; no county inspector 
who has been in all the county prisons: few State inspectors who have been in all the 
county prisons or any of the municipal ones; and no one official person in the State 
who has ever visited half of the prisons it contains. Consequently, there is no proper 
knowledge anywhere of the relation of one part of the prison system to the rest, and 
no proper system at all, but only a confusion of laws, rules, boards, and details. There 
are wheels in plenty, and wheels within wheels, more than the sacred prophet saw in 
his vision; but there is no “spirit within the wheels ” by which they are regulated 
and made to move harmoniously. Probably no other State enjoys so complicated and 
various a prison system as Massachusetts, in which are as many devices and contriv¬ 
ances as in the cabinet where the Abbe Sieyes, in Burke’s famous satire, manufactured 
constitutions for France. Unfortunately these devices, however ingenious, result in 
neutralizing responsibility, deadening the public vigilance, and opening the door to 
culpable neglect and to petty corruption. The instruction, the reformation, the disci¬ 
pline, and even the life of poor prisoners may be sacrificed in the medley and delay of 
so much legal machinery; for each of these important things, like Johnson’s hero, is 

Condemned, a needy supplicant, to wait 

While ladies interpose and boards debate. 

In connection with the Massachusetts prisons, three isolated facts offer themselves 
to the recollection of the present writer, not connected by any necessary chain of cause 
and effect with the system just described, but perhaps illustrative of it. During a 
debate concerning one phase of the prison question in the Massachusetts legislature on 
the 6th of May last, a Boston member, who had probably never seen the inside of ten 
among the 150 prisons of his State remarked complacently, and evidently with the 
approval of the house, that “Massachusetts had the best prison system in the world.” 
A few weeks previous—in consequence of the acceptance of a gift by the highest prison 
superintendent in the State, at the hands of a contractor, who gave it for the manifest 
purpose of securing a favorable bargain for himself from the prison government—the 
last touch had been given to this perfect system, in the same legislature, by the passage 
of a law forbidding any prison officer to take bribes. And just a week after the speech 
above cited, that is on the 13th of May, the grandson of one of the most illustrious 
statesmen of Massachusetts in former years, a youth of amiable character, but unfortu¬ 
nate habits, was fatally burned in a Boston guard house, through the neglect of the 
policeman who had locked him up there, alone and helpless, and in the midst of com¬ 
bustible materials. Thus, on one side of the official eulogist is corruption in the chief 
officer of the highest prison, long undetected and still unpunished ; while on the other 
side is a horrible casualty in the lowest prison, of which official negligence was the 
direct cause. It may not be unjust to consider these events as a commentary on the 
intricate prison system of Massachusetts, itself the successive growth of many years 
spent in trying to avoid what cau alone govern prisons well, a central, simple, and 
vigilant method of control and inspection. 

In the above statement some repetitions ot‘ what had before been said 
may be noticed; and also some additional facts and some discrepancies 
as to the number of county prisons. The latter result from the varying 
use of these prison buildings in successive years, and are only apparent 
discrepancies. In the main the passage quoted is still true to the facts; 
but should the recommendations of Governor Washburn and of the 
prison commission be accepted by the legislature, much of this ridiculous 
jumble of petty authorities would be done away with. The plan is to 
bring all the county prisons and the Boston House of Industry under 
State control, by establishing a system of district prisons, the details of 
which are set forth in the report of the Massachusetts prison commission- 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


405 


ers for 1872, lately submitted to the legislature. The districts proposed are 
seven in number, of very unequal population and criminal conditions, but 
arranged with reference to the present county lines, and to the prison 
buildings, which will continue to be occupied, though with a different 
classification of prisoners, if the new plan is adopted. The districts pro¬ 
posed are Suffolk and Norfolk, with a population, in 1870, of 360,245, 
but now increased to 380,000, and containiug four prisons, three in Bos¬ 
ton and one in Dedham; Middlesex, with a population, in 1870, of 274,- 
353, now increased to nearly 300,000, with two prisons, at Cambridge 
and at Lowell; Essex, with a population of 200,843 in 1870, now in¬ 
creased to 210,000, with two prisons, at Lawrence arid at Salem; Wor¬ 
cester, with a population, in 1870, of 192,716, now increased to more 
than 200,000, and containing two prisons, at Worcester and at Fitch- 
burgh ; Southern Massachusetts, including the five counties of Barnstable, 
Bristol, Plymouth, Dukes, and Nantucket, with a population, in 1870, 
of 208,905, now increased to 215,000; the Connecticut Yalley, including 
the three counties of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin, with a popu¬ 
lation, in 1870, of 155,432, now increased to 160,000; and Berkshire, the 
seventh and last district, with a population, in 1870, of 64,827, now in¬ 
creased to 68,000. The prison population of these seven districts, Octo¬ 
ber 1, 1872, was 1,406 in the Suffolk district, 358 in Middlesex, 306 in 
Essex, 180 in Southern Massachusetts, (exclusive of 267 at Bridgewater,) 
172 in Worcester, 136 in the Connecticut Yalley, and 74 in Berkshire; 
in all 2,632, exclusive of the 829 at Charlestown and Bridgewater, under 
State control. 

The Southern Massachusetts district will have two chief prisons, at 
New Bedford and at Taunton, with small jails at Plymouth, Barnstable, 
Edgartown, and Nantucket; the Connecticut Yalley district two chief 
prisons, at Springfield and at Northampton, with a jail at Greenfield; 
and the Berkshire district one prison, comprising jail, work-house, and 
house of correction, under a single roof. In each of the six larger dis¬ 
tricts there is to be, by this plan, a work-house and a house of correc¬ 
tion in separate buildings, and generally in different cities, the former for 
vagrants, drunkards, &c., who now make up more than half our convicts, 
and the latter for more heinous offenders. In each prison will be jail- 
cells, to be used as the jails now are, except that in Suffolk County the 
Boston jail will receive all such prisoners. Each of the seven houses of 
correction is to be governed by a resident master, appointed by the 
governor and council, and each master is to appoint a resident deputy 
to govern the work-house in his district. The jails are to remain in 
part under the control of the county sheriffs, as at present. 

The new scheme is by no means free from complications and incon¬ 
sistencies, and is probably too extensive to be carried as a whole; but 
it is a great improvement on the present system, and some part of it 
will probably soon be adopted. Gradually the superior advantages of 
district prisons over county prisons will be seen, and the so much needed 
classification of prisoners, now almost wholly neglected in Massachusetts, 
can in time be attained. With that will come better prison schools, a 
better-organized system of labor, and more thorough and therefore more 
successful efforts to make our prisons truly reformatory. At present 
they are so only to a very slight degree; nor do tliey perceptibly check 
crime, which, since 1864, has apparently increased in a much greater ratio 
than our population. In 1865 there were less than 2,000 inmates of all 
the Massachusetts prisons; five years later, October 1, 1870, there were 
3,121; at the same date in 1871 there were 3,224; in 1872, 3,461; and 
at the beginning of 1873 about 3,280, as has been said. The average 


406 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF J673. 


prison population m 1870, was 2,971; in 1871, 3,145J 5 and in 1872,3,218. 
There has, therefore, been in seven years an apparent increase of more 
than GO per cent, in the number of criminals, while the population has 
not gained more than 25 per cent. 

Prisons for icomen. - 

There is not in Massachusetts, nor has there ever been, a distinct 
prison for women, though the average number of women in prison here 
lias been from GOO to 800 for the last eight years. Of the prisoners in 
confinement October 1,1870, 754 were women ; at the same date in 1871, 
758 were women; October 1,1872, there were 770 women in prison. The 
recommendations of Governor Washburn, seconded by the prison com¬ 
mission, include the conversion of the State work-house at Bridgewater 
into a State prison for women alone, to which those now in the county 
and city prisons would be sent. It is probable that this plan, which 
meets with much popular favor, will be put in practice the present year 

Prison schools. 

Little has yet been done in Massachusetts to give school instruction 
to prisoners. The importance of this branch of prison discipline has 
been urged upon the legislature and the prison officers by the board of 
State charities ever since 18G5, and, in consequence, a few prison schools 
have been opened. That at Charlestown is the largest and the most 
useful, but is far from equaling, either in plan or management, the ex¬ 
cellent schools of Mr. Brockway, at Detroit. In the county prisons and 
at the Bridgewater work-house a few prisoners have received instruc¬ 
tion. But the officers, as a rule, do not understand the necessity for 
prison schools, and the contractors are practically opposed to them. 
Should the proposed changes in our prison system be made, the educa¬ 
tion of prisoners could and probably would be much better cared for. 

Cost of our prisons. 

The cost of the present prison buildings and lands, incurred during 
the last seventy-three years, cannot have been less than $ 3 , 000 , 000 , al¬ 
though an exact computation is impossible. About a third part of this 
sum lias been paid for construction, enlargement, &c., at the Charles¬ 
town prison alone ; and the estimated cost of a reconstruction of that 
prison at Newton, or in some other convenient locality near Boston, is a 
million of dollars, to be re-imbursed in great part by the sale of the 
estate at Charlestown. The annual interest on $ 3 , 000,000 is $180,000, 
or an average for each prisoner of more than $50 a year, or about a dol¬ 
lar a week. The actual current expenses of the prisons above named, 
for the year ending October 1 , 1872, were about $511,000, to which, 
if we add the cost of maintaining the one hundred and thirty town and 
city prisons for temporary detention or occasional sentence of petty 
offenders, we shall have a total of about $550,000. From this should 
be deducted the earnings from labor of convicts, fees of visitors, 
and petty sales, amounting, in the year 1872, to about $275,000; 
leaving, as the net cost of maintaining some 3,300 prisoners, (the con¬ 
stant average,) about $275,000, or more than $80 each. This is a 
larger net cost and a greater number of prisoners than for several years 
past, but the prison earnings are also greater than in any year before. 
In the county prisons these earnings have very much increased since 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


407 


the close of the war. In 1865, with an average number of 1,050, the 
county prison earnings were but $34,G94; in 18G8 they had more than 
doubled, being $G9,625 for 1,554 prisoners; and now they have almost 
doubled again, being $129,186 for 1,850 prisoners. Yet even now they 
are from $50,000 to $100,000 less than they might be if the county pris¬ 
ons were properly classified, and the most thorough labor system em¬ 
ployed. We see that 543 convicts at Charlestown have earned almost as 
much as 1,850 in the county prisons; or to be more exact, as much as 1,370 
convicts in 1G houses of correction, for the jail prisoners, mostly waiting- 
trial, are not compelled to labor. There is no good reason why, with 
the exception of these jail prisoners, averaging from 400 to 500, and 
costing from $75,000 to $100,000 a year for their support, the whole 
annual cost of our prisons should not be paid by the labor of the con¬ 
victs, who would thus become self-supporting. Few of them are too 
feeble to do any work, more than two-thirds of them are men, and the 
demand for such work as they can do is constant and remunerative. 
The largest contractors for prison labor in the State, the Tucker Manu¬ 
facturing Company, who grumbled because the authorities made them 
pay $1 a day for skilled mechanics, have lately paid to another contractor 
$15,000 for the right to use his 100 men at 90 cents a day, for a single 
year. This is about 50 cents a day additional, or $1.40 for each man, 
which the state prison inspectors say is a fair contract price for them. 
Probably they earn for the contractor at least $2 a day. In the county 
prisons the labor is not so well trained nor so valuable, but at the South 
Boston house of correction the whole number, some 450, both men and 
women, earn their support, and something more; and the surplus that 
might be earned by the strong and more skillful would make good the 
deficit on the weaker and worse trained workmen in the county prisons. 
At the same time, such a classification of the convicts as would make 
their labor most profitable would render it easier to give them school 
instruction, religious discipline, sanitary advantages, and all that tends 
to make prison life reformatory. 

The reformatories. 

If an examination of the Massachusetts prisons is far from satisfactory, 
and shows that they need immediate and thorough re-organization, this 
is by no means the case with the reformatories for young offenders. 
These were never in so bad a condition as our prisons, and they have 
been for several years growing better, and doing their work more thor¬ 
oughly. The nautical reformatory, or school-ship, which had outlived 
its usefulness, and become a burden instead of a help to the reformatory 
work of the State, was finally abolished in July, 1872; the prevent¬ 
ive institution at Monson, known as the State Primary School, estab¬ 
lished by law in 1866, has gone steadily forward in a very useful work; 
while the “ Yisiting Agency,” providing homes in families for young 
delinquents, and neglected or orphan children, has almost revolution¬ 
ized the old policy of the State and of the courts. All these changes 
may be said to have grown out of the action taken by the board of 
charities, which first established a visiting agency in 1866, in connection 
with the Monson Primary School, and first called attention to the de¬ 
fective condition of the nautical reformatory in the same year. In the 
six years that have since gone by, such changes have taken place as 
would scarcely be credited but for the unimpeachable evidence of sta¬ 
tistics. In 1867, when the new policy first began to take effect, the 
average number of pupils at the State reformatories was 752, and the 


408 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


sum drawn from the State for their support was more than $140,000; in 
1872, the average number of pupils was but 464, including 75 on board 
the school-ship, and the sum drawn from the treasury for their support 
was but $96,695, including $23,703 for the school-ship, now abolished. 

* During the current year, 1873, the average number of pupils will scarcely 
equal 400, and the sum drawn from the treasury will be but little more 
than $70,000, or half what it was six years ago. In the mean time our 
population has increased about 200,000, while juvenile crime has de¬ 
creased. Especially since 1870, when the existing visiting agency was 
established by statute, and had its powers greatly enlarged, this 
decrease has been manifest. On the 1st of October, 1869, there were 97 
children under seventeen in the county prisons; a year later there were 
but 54; in October, 1871, but 33, and on the 1st of last October only 
25. At the same time there is at least twice the personal attention given 
by public officers to the circumstances and temptations of young offend¬ 
ers and neglected children; the moral condition of the whole class from 
which these culprits come receives more consideration, both from the 
authorities and the community in general; and the result, as we now 
see it, is eminently gratifying. The reports of the State Visiting Agent, 
Mr. Tufts, may well be consulted for further information in regard to 
the new policy in Massachusetts, and its good effects. This policy is 
based upon the belief that much of the vice and crime among the young 
comes from a lack of attention to their individual circumstances, and 
the Avant of a good home; and the main object of the State, in its deal¬ 
ings with neglected and culpable children, is to find them good homes. 
This is done to a much greater extent than formerly, and the persons 
who receive these children are so held to such a constant responsibility, 
that the abuse of children placed out from the public establishments is 
much less than it used to be. The State pays less money, the com¬ 
munity is better protected from juvenile crime, the children themselves 
are better cared for, and their employers are kept from injustice and the 
oppression which u maketh a wise man mad”—much more a child who 
has little chance to learn wisdom. While there are still many evils to 
be corrected, and some that may have come in with the new policy, its 
general results are everywhere acknowledged to be happy. 

The State reformatories. 

There are now but two of these: the reform school for boys at West- 
borough, founded by the late Theodore Lyman, in 1848, and still aided 
by a portion of his endowment, but mainly supported by the State; and 
the industrial school for girls, at Lancaster, founded in 1856. The school- 
ship, or nautical reformatory, established in 1860, was closed in July, 
1872, and a few of its boys are still held in confinement at Westborough. 
The limit of age for admission at Westborough, which used to be four¬ 
teen years, is now seventeen, and, on the other hand, fewer young boys 
are sent thither. The consequence is that the average age of the 
inmates is considerably increased, and when the board of charities last 
visited Westborough, (January 14, 1873,) more than three-fifths of the 
303 boys present were over fifteen years old. The average age of admis¬ 
sion would seem to be now about thirteen and one-half years, or from 
one to two years greater than formerly. During the year ending Octo¬ 
ber 1, 1872, the whole number at any time in the school was 474 $ but of 
these only 90 were ne\v r commitments, 43 were received from the school- 
ship and from Monson, and 69 w r ere returned to the school from various 
places. The average number during the year was 267; the number 


REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 409 


October 1, 1872, was 254; and January 1, 1873, it was 297. The estab¬ 
lishment, as for several years past, has a main building where about 200 
boys are kept together, under lock and key, and three family houses, in 
which about 75 boys are generally kept and trusted with greater free¬ 
dom. There are seven school-rooms, and during most of the year seven 
schools are kept up. The labor of the boys is about equally divided 
between the farm of 263 acres and the mechanical work of chair-seating. 
The cash earnings from labor in 1872 were $8,113, or about $30 for each 
boy. For the current year they are likely to be $10,000, being $2,600 
for the first quarter of the official year, from October, 1872, to January, 
1873. The whole expenditures in 1872 were $50,534, including $1,369 
paid from the income of the Lyman fund, now amounting to more than 
$30,000. From this should be deducted the earnings from labor and 
sales, amounting to $8,488, leaving the net cost of supporting 267 boys 
$42,046, or about $3 a week for each boy. Of this net cost, however, 
the State treasury paid but $33,375, the sum of $7,302 being paid by 
cities and towns for the partial support of their boys, and $1,369 coming 
from an invested fund. 

The girls’ industrial school at Lancaster is conducted wholly on the 
family system; the 122 girls, making up the average number for 1872, 
residing in five family houses, each under the charge of a matron, and 
each containing a school and school-teacher. The whole number at 
Lancaster during the year was 171; the number, October 1, 1872, was 
121; and January 1, 1873, it was 128. Much attention is paid to the 
school exercises and to religious instruction, less to labor, especially to 
productive earnings. The age of the pupils increases, as at Westbor- 
ough, and for similar reasons. In both schools the difficulty of mana¬ 
ging and reforming the pupils is thereby increased. A majority of the 
girls at Lancaster are now persons who have lost their chastity, and a 
considerable number of them have been prostitutes. In this respect 
the school has changed for the worse; but it probably renders as great 
a service as ever to the community. The average age of girls when 
committed is about fourteen, and they remain for about two years at 
Lancaster, on an average. A farm of 185 acres is connected with the 
school, but the girls do little in horticulture or the care of the dairy. 
For their support in 1872, $23,987 was drawn from the State treasury, 
and may be assumed as the cost of the school for the year. The earn¬ 
ings from labor were $543.63, or nearly $4.50 for each girl; the net cost 
for the year was about $22,776, or $3.60 a week for each girl. The 
towns and cities paid $3,280, however, so that the net cost to the State 
treasury was about $19,500. During the present year the net cost of 
both the State reformatories to the State treasury will probably be but 
little more than $50,000, while the cities and towns, which now pay 
about a sixth part of the expense of the children sent from them, will 
contribute some $10,000 more, and the income of invested funds will 
add $1,500 more. 

Both the State reformatories are managed by boards of trustees, 
seven at Westborougb, and five at Lancaster, appointed by the gov¬ 
ernor of the State. The other large public reformatory, the Boston 
house of reformation, which dates back to 1826, is controlled by the 
city u board of directors for public institutions,” who also manage the 
city prisons. With one of these prisons the house of reformation is 
connected, being situated on Deer Island, in Boston harbor. The 
boys in this reformatory are under the same roof with the house-ot- 
industry convicts, but the girls are in a smaller house close by. The 


410 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


whole number of pupils in a year is about 500, of whom about one- 
eighth are girls. 

The average number in 1872 was 312; and the number January 1, 
1873, was about 300 of both sexes. No earnings are separately reported 
in this reformatory, nor is its annual cost very exactly given; it is 
probably about $35,000, or somewhat less than at Westborougli. The 
number of pupils in these three reformatories at the present time is not 
far from 720; a few years ago it was more than 1,000 in the four large 
public reformatories then existing. At Lowell and several of the other 
cities there are small municipal reformatories or truant-schools, to which 
juvenile otfenders are sentenced; the average number of such sentenced 
children in the whole State is perhaps 100 ; making above 800 children 
now held in public reformatories. The u House of the Angel Guardian” 
is a private Catholic reformatory, with, perhaps, 175 boys in it, but they 
are not under sentence. It is located at Iloxbury, within the city limits 
of Boston. 

Preventive agencies. 

The most important means of prevention furnished by the State to 
check juvenile crime are the State primary school at Monson and the 
State visiting agency, both dating from 1866, but the latter established 
by special law only since I860. This has already been spoken of, and 
any further information concerning it that may be needed will be found 
in the annual reports of the board of charities, of which it is a depart¬ 
ment. The Monson school holds a place of its own among the public 
establishments of Massachusetts, and, since last June, when it was sep¬ 
arated from the almshouse with which it had been joined, to its great dis¬ 
advantage, has a special claim upon the consideration of persons who 
have at heart or on their hands the care of poor children. The Mon¬ 
son school is filled with sons and daughters of the poor—children who, 
if neglected, would grow up to be paupers and criminals, as many of their * 
relatives have. Formerly such children were themselves esteemed pau¬ 
pers and treated as such; now they are by law, and will soon become 
by custom, the State’s wards and pupils, free from any stigma of pauper¬ 
ism, and often outgrowing their hereditary tendencies and the unfor¬ 
tunate associations of their early childhood. The school now occupies 
exclusively the premises of the former State almshouse, and has a farm 
of 230 acres. The buildings have been thoroughly repaired and greatly 
improved; they are now warmed by steam, lighted by gas, supplied 
with a new laundry, bath-rooms, and other conveniences—none of them 
too good for the use of these poor children. The number of different 
pupils during the year 1872 was about 570; the average number 361, 
the number remaining October 1, 1872, 341, and on January 1, 1873, 
357. A little more than a fourth of these pupils are girls. Their aver¬ 
age age is between nine and ten, and few are allowed to remain beyond 
the age of sixteen. They are sent to Monson from the State almshouse, or 
placed there by the visiting agent, when he believes they do not need 
the restraints of Westborougli or Lancaster, and has no family on his 
list suitable to receive them. The average attendance in the six school¬ 
rooms during the year was 344; the cost of supporting the pupils of the 
primary school was something more than $40,000, which was paid wholly 
from the State treasury. The labor of the pupils does something to 
diminish the cost of their maintenance, which is about $2.50 a week for 
each child; but their cash earnings have been small and are not likely 
to increase greatly. The superintendent is now about to introduce the 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MICHIGAN. 


411 

same ?mplovment that is pursued at Westborough—chair-seating. It 
is the rule of the establishment to place the pupils in families, as soon 
as they can be provided with suitable places, which prevents the long 
continuance in school of any except the very young or the less desirable 
children. 

The Boston farm school is a private charity, receiving and supporting 
about one hundred poor children at a time. It has existed nearly forty 
years in its present form and location, Thompson’s Island, near South 
Boston, and exercises a good influence, so far as its means extend. .Its 
pupils are not under sentence, nor are they boys who have committed 
offenses, generally speaking. In this respect they resemble the pupils 
at Monson: but the farm-school boys are of a better stock, physically, 
mentally, and morally, than those at Monson. There are other private 
charities, orphan homes, &c., which do in a less degree, and for younger 
children, what the farm school does. 

Discharged prisoners. 

There are two societies in Massachusetts which aid discharged pris¬ 
oners; and both have in former years received State appropriations. 
The older is the “ Prisoners’ Aid Society” or n Agency for Discharged 
Convicts,” to which the State in 1871 made an appropriation of $3,000, 
the greater part of which went to pay the salary of the agent. The 
other is a society in aid of women discharged from prison, and main¬ 
tains the “Temporary Asylum for Discharged Female Prisoners” at 
Dedham. Both societies are doing a good work on rather a small scale, 
but more and more each year. Could these agencies be connected, as 
they are in Ireland, with the government and the school-instruction 
of the main prisons, more could be done by them to assist the convict 
in regaining by an honest course the good opinion of society. 

Few general remarks have been made in this report, because the whole 
subject of our penal and reformatory establishments has been frequently 
discussed in the reports of the board of charities and the prison com¬ 
missioners. Mr. Edward L. Pierce, secretary of the board, who con¬ 
veys this paper to the congress, has made himself familiar both with 
the principles and the details of the subject-matter, and will doubtless 
answer auy questions or make any explanations which may be desired. 


10. Michigan. 

By Hon. C. L Walker, chairman of the hoard of commissioners for the general supervision of 
penal, pauper, charitable , and reformatory institutions of the State of Michigan. 

The State of Michigan ranks eleventh in population of the States of 
the American Union. It is rapidly growing, having increased the num¬ 
ber of its inhabitants more than one-third w ithin the last ten years. It 
has a fertile soil, is rich in agricultural and mineral wealth, is traversed 
by a net-work of railroads, and nearly encircled by inland seas, giving 
it commercial advantages which but few States possess. Its law’s are 
liberal, and bespeak an advanced public sentiment, many of the old 
forms of jurisprudence, like capital punishment and the grand-jury sys¬ 
tem, having been abolished, and with favorable results. Its institutions 
are established upon a broad basis, and wisely adapted for such im¬ 
provements as time and experience may prove worthy of adoption. 



412 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Within the last year crime has decreased within its limits, a resuft, per¬ 
haps, in a great measure due to the increased efficiency of these insti¬ 
tutions, and to the use of more effective means for the proper discipline 
of offenders. 

The preventive and penal system of the State for the repression of 
crime may be summed up in brief as follows : 

First. Prevention of the increase of criminals, by provision, through 
a State institution, for the training and education of truant, vagrant, 
and dependent children ; they being the great source from whence crime 
draws recruits to its ranks. 

Second. The reform school for juveniles of tender years, who have 
actually committed crime, and whose guilt has been duly proven. 

Third. The jail for the detention of prisoners, arrested and charged 
with the commission of crime, until they can be tried; and for the safe 
keeping of such as have been tried and found guilty, until they can be 
conveyed to the place of punishment; and for the imprisonment of 
petty offenders. 

Fourth. The Detroit house of correction, as an intermediate prison 
or work-house for persons convicted of minor offenses or of grave 
charges, who give hope of reformation. 

Fifth. The state prison for confirmed or dangerous criminals, con¬ 
victed of high crimes. 

[N. B.—At this point, the report goes at some length into a statement 
of the character and objects of the first of the above-named institutions. 
A special report on the same subject was also handed in by the Hon. C. 
D. Kandall, secretary and treasurer of the commissioners in charge of 
the institution, who, as chairman of the joint legislative committee of 
1871, on penal, reformatory, and charitable institutions, was chiefly in¬ 
strumental in originating this very important agency in the prevention 
of crime. But, as Mr. Brockway, reporting for the committee on prison 
discipline, (see p. 332,) has fully explained this institution, both state¬ 
ments are omitted here for economy of space.—E. C. W.] 

The reform school receives boys between the ages of ten and sixteen 
years who have been convicted of the commission of crime. They are 
sent to the school until they reach the age of twenty-one years, but most 
of them are discharged long before they arrive at their majority, being 
retained in the institution onty an average period of about three years. 

Farming has received a large share of attention, and many of the 
larger boys are mainly employed at it. 

The institution is designed to reform rather than to punish those com¬ 
mitted to its charge, and religious and secular instruction, as well as 
labor, are relied upon as prominent agencies in the work of reclama¬ 
tion. Every boy is required to attend school a stated number of hours 
each week day. Excellent progress is made. There is a fair library 
and picture gallery attached. 

This institution is conducted on the congregate and family system 
combined. In addition to the large buildings occupied by most of the 
boys, two u family houses ” receive the better class, whoare graded into 
them, and there have more freedom and nearly all the privileges of a 
good home. They eat at the same table with the family, have large 
bedrooms, and are treated quite as well as boys generally are on a good 
farm. The school is doing an excellent work in saving numbers from a 
life of crime. 

The State of Michigan is divided into seventy counties, most of which 
have jails. The jails contain an average population of about three hun¬ 
dred persons, and for their superintendence and care employ a force of 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MICHIGAN. 


413 


about oue hundred and fifty persons. In construction and appearance 
they are very unlike. They vary from the cheap log pen to expensive, 
showy, and imposing edifices, some costing less than one hundred dol¬ 
lars, others fifty or sixty thousand. In the majority of them the safe¬ 
keeping of prisoners seems to have been the principal object in their 
construction, yet most are insecure for the detention of skillful and dan¬ 
gerous criminals. Breaking jail is of frequent occurrence, and without 
a great deal of watching, the adroit rogue is quite apt to find his way 
out. 

A small cell, destitute of furniture or decent bedding, fronting on a 
hall or corridor five or six feet in width, without much light or proper 
means of ventilation, and so constructed as to deprive the occupant of 
a full supply of that necessity to health, pure air, constitutes the apart¬ 
ment generally provided for a prisoner. In some of them two, and even 
three, persons are lodged in bunks, one above the other. The air in 
these cells is frequently foul from the. odors of the privy, and the supply 
of light in many of them is so insufficient that those confined therein 
can only with difficulty see to read in the day-time. In some of the jails 
prisoners are locked up in the cells (many of which are damp and musty) 
all the time, but in the most of them they mingle together promiscuously 
in the corridor during the day, and are only locked in separate cells at 
night. 

The prisoners have no work, no instruction, nothing to do but to amuse 
themselves as best they can. Here are to be found in intimate associa¬ 
tion the old offender and the wayward youth, the former relating his 
exploits, glorying in his crimes, and inspiring the latter with a desire 
for similar adventures. The novice is thus made familiar with the u tricks 
of the trade,” and goes forth prepared to operate with all the skill of the 
accomplished rascal, save experience. 

In the best and most expensive jails, as well as in the poorest, this 
association is of daily occurrence. In the most costly, during the present 
year, we have witnessed wayward little girls caged up with notorious 
prostitutes, and truant boys made the companions of degraded and des¬ 
perate characters. In the very nature of things, imprisonment without 
labor, and the unrestrained association of offenders of different grades, 
must have the effect to increase rather than diminish the number of 
criminals. 

While most of our jails are tolerably clean, some of them scrupulously 
so, there are others that are in a filthy condition—dirt, vermin, and dis¬ 
order reigning supreme. Scarcely any have bathing facilities, and in 
some, water for the ordinary purpose of washing the hands and face is 
not always to be had. 

In not a few of the jails prisoners are required to wash and iron their 
own under garments, or go without clean clothes ; and some under such 
circumstances have gone for months without clean shirts. The effect 
of confinement under these circumstances is to make men filthy and 
degraded. 

Persons violently insane may frequently be found in our jails for the 
want of other places for their safe-keeping ; and in some of them there 
is no provision for a separation of the sexes. 

Witnesses and debtors, guilty of no crime whatever, are sometimes for 
months shut up with the vilest felons, and the innocent and the guilty are 
thus mixed together. Instead of presuming every man innocent until he 
is duly tried and his guilt proven, our manner of treating men in jail who 
are awaiting trial seems to presume them guilty and sent to the jail for 
punishment instead of detention. A large proportion of those commit- 


414 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


ted are, on examination or trial, acquitted, and thus innocent men merely 
suspected of crime are thrown into these jails, and caged and cared for 
in a manner disgraceful to our civilization. 

These statements briefly present the true condition of many of our 
jails, and we think an examination of them must satisfy any fair-minded 
man that, as generally conducted, they are simply training schools to 
make adepts in crime. We have yet to learn a single instance where 
a person has been bettered or reformed by a committal to jail, while, on 
the other hand, we can point to numbers who we believe have been 
made worse thereby. 

The Detroit house of correction, although a municipal prison, owned 
and controlled by the city of Detroit, in which the State has no direct 
interest of ownership, is nevertheless entitled to be ranked among the 
foremost of our State penal institutions, for the reason that it receives 
annually from all parts of the State, as well as from the city of Detroit, 
criminals convicted of misdemeanors, and forms one of the most impor¬ 
tant links in our whole prison system, being especially adapted for that 
class of offenders who ought not to be committed to the jails or to the 
state penitentiary. Besides, this is the only prison that receives to any 
considerable extent the female convicts of the State. It has acquired an 
extended reputation, and is recognized throughout the country as a 
model institution of its kind. With a superintendent who has made the 
management of prisons not only a study but the practical business of 
years, devoting all his best energies to the work, this prison has been 
in many respects a remarkable success. 

The house of correction has not only proved self-sustaining, but 
during its nine years’ existence has earned $103,000 over and above cur¬ 
rent expenses of every kind. 

Prisoners in this institution are principally employed in the manu¬ 
facture of chairs and cigars. The contract system is not adopted. The 
superintendent purchases stock, causes it to be made up, and, when 
manufactured, disposes of the goods. 

The discipline is very simple. Obedience, order, and cleanliness are 
strictly enforced. There are no grades in the male department, and 
none, unless it be a transfer to the house of shelter, in the female de¬ 
partment. Eewards for good conduct are used only to a very limited 
extent, the privilege of over-work, or a chair, or some other little article 
of cell-furniture, being about the only stimulus of this kind given to the 
prisoners. The prison dress is not in use, and flogging with the lash or 
otherwise has been abolished. 

The educational training which this institution gives to its inmates is 
one of its most distinguishing and excellent features. 

The house of shelter, established in connection with the house of cor¬ 
rection, to which female prisoners from the latter are transferred for good 
conduct, is a commodious and well-furnished home, provided with all the 
comforts and conveniences of a well-to-do family. Here is a company 
of wayward girls taken from bad influences, forming a little society of 
their own, and by industry, education, and refining associations, fitting 
themselves for lives of respectability and usefulness. Each inmate is 
provided with an ordinary-sized bedroom, fitted with the furniture 
usually found in a room of this kind. They take their meals together 
at a table in the dining-hall, covered with a neat table cloth, and fur¬ 
nished with excellent table ware and napkins. Most of the day is 
devoted to work, mainly sewing and making linen coats and pauta- 
loons. Singing, music on a parlor organ, evening school and reading, 
with a weekly evening gathering for conversation and social entertain- 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MICHIGAN. 


415 


merit, constitute the principal exercises. Culture of this kind, amid 
such surroundings, cannot fail to be productive of great good in pre¬ 
paring those who receive it for useful home life, and we cannot but 
regard the house of shelter as one of the best agencies for saving those 
likely to fall that it has been our province to find. 

The success of the Detroit house of correction seems to us not so much 
due to the adoption of any particular system for the government of its in¬ 
mates, unless it be the extraordinary efforts in the direction of education, 
as to the zeal and efficiency of the superintendent. Mr. Brockway is, em¬ 
phatically, the head of tiie institution, and every department of it is 
pervaded with his enthusiasm and inspiration. He has shown himself 
one of the most active, intelligent, and zealous of the prison men of the 
country, being among the foremost in the great work of prison reform, 
and it is matter of deep regret that he is about to sever his connection 
with the establishment. 

The state prison is* the principal penal institution of the State, and is 
nearly as old as the State government, having been established in 
1839, three years after the admission of Michigan into the Federal 
Uniou. Located at the city of Jackson, in the central part of the State, 
amid a net-work of railroads, it is convenient and easy of access. The 
prison grounds embrace some thirty 7 " acres of land within the corporate 
limits of the city, and the prison walls, which have recently been recon¬ 
structed in a good and substantial manner, inclose about ten and a half 
acres. 

The system of imprisonment is that known as the congregate or 
Auburn. The prisoners work in association by day, under the rule of 
silence, and at night are locked up in cells, some of which have been 
carpeted and ornamented with pictures in a very tasty manner by the 
convicts occupying them, thus showing that even behind prison bars 
men still appreciate and enjoy order and beauty. 

The prisoners labor about an average of nine hours each week-day 
during the year, in workshops within the inclosure. The principal 
business carried on is the manufacture of furniture, wagons, agricultural 
implements, cigars, boots and shoes. The labor of the convicts is let to 
contractors, who, at fixed periods, of which due notice is given, bid and 
compete for it. The present rates paid for this labor range from 50 to 
76 cents per day for each man. 

Tasks are assigned to many of the men, which they accomplish before 
the close of working hours. The remainder of the time they generally 
spend in idleness. 

In their last report the inspectors of the prison say : “ The discipline 
of the prison has been greatly modified and improved within the past 
year. Kind but decided and firm treatment has been employed as the 
principal means of control, and we think with decided success. Infrac¬ 
tions of the rules have been less frequent, and there has been a gratify¬ 
ing decrease of the necessity for severe punishment. Good order has 
been maintained and punishment seldom required. Ko class of men 
appreciate kindness and humane treatment more than convicts do. Shut 
out from the world, and deprived of the ordinary privileges of life, they 
carefully note and remember every little kindness, and we believe are 
more easily and better governed thereby than by the use of harsher 
means. We have heard discharged convicts, about to go from the prison, 
recount the little kindnesses that have been extended to them, and seen 
them with tears of gratitude in their eyes thank the officers for the inter¬ 
est they had manifested in their welfare. We have made it a point, as far 
as possible, to ascertain what we could with respect to the conduct of 


416 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


such as have gone out of the prison, and we are happy to be able to 
state that the great majority have so conducted themselves as to give 
the assurance that they will in the future lead better lives. Only a 
very few have returned to their former practices.’ 7 

The ordinary and most frequent punishment is the bare cell and short 
rations; for more flagrant offenses an addition of tying the hands be¬ 
hind the body and fastening them to the cell door. As a last resort, for 
personal violence or a deliberate outrage, the lash is still held in reserve, 
although the instances for its use are seldom found necessary. When¬ 
ever convicts have, or conceive that they have, cause of complaint 
against officers or any free men, they are always at liberty to bring 
their complaint to the agent. 

A system of rewards has been devised and partly put in effect, so that 
now, at the end of each month, the convict who has conformed to the 
rules of the prison receives a card, as evidence of good behavior. Offi¬ 
cers say that it is astonishing to see how the man prize these cards, 
treasuring them up, or sending them away to their families; and that 
the effect of these little rewards is excellent in controlling the prisoners 
and stimulating them to good conduct. Again, some of the old features 
of prison life, tending to destroy the self-respect of the imprisoned, have 
been removed, and the change seems to work well. Thus the rule re¬ 
quiring the men to labor with their eyes constantly upon their work has 
been modified, and there is no longer that downcast, u hang-dog” ex¬ 
pression which formerly seemed to be peculiar to each convict. 

There has also been greater infusion of educational agencies. An 
hour on each Sabbath is now devoted to secular instruction, and num¬ 
bers of convicts who came into the prison unable to read or write, 
through the training of this school, have acquired these primary ele¬ 
ments of education. Interesting lectures and readings are more fre¬ 
quent than formerly, and many of the men, stimulated by the desire 
thus created for good reading, have voluntarily given up the use of 
tobacco for the privilege of becoming regular subscribers to some one 
of our leading monthly magazines. Twice a week, after dinner, the 
agent selects and reads for fifteen minutes to the prisoners in the dining- 
hall some interesting and instructive piece. 

The prison continues the practice which it some years ago inaugurated, 
of giving special privileges to its prisoners on public holidays. The 
custom is believed to be beneficial, making the convict more cheerful, 
and impressing him with a conviction that an interest is still felt in his 
welfare. An excellent dinner and short addresses constitute the order 
of the day on these occasions. Of the effect of the observance of these 
holidays the agent says: “lam satisfied that in the manner we have 
conducted them they have in no way impaired or relaxed the general 
discipline, while, on the contrary, the presence of good men and women, 
reading, talking, and singing, assures them they are not entirely cut off 
from all human sympathy. The whole tendency of these hospitalities is 
to engender and enliven the kindlier feelings and sympathies.” For 
several years the prison has been self-supporting, paying by its earnings 
all its current expenses. 

The public mind of the State is beginning to manifest more interest 
in the work for which this congress has assembled. Men and women 
within our borders are helping to create an improved system of prison 
discipline, worthy of our civilization. We have reason to anticipate 
favorable legislation in relation to many of the topics suggested. And 
it is an especial cause of congratulation that our efficient governor is in 
full and hearty sympathy with us in the cause of prison reform, and in 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MINNESOTA. 


417 


tlie improved care demanded for all the wards of the State, and we 
have strong faith that the good work will go on until these desirable 
results are fully accomplished. 


11. Minnesota. 


By Professor William F. Phelps, President of the State Normal School. 

Minnesota was admitted into the Union in May, 1S58. Hence, its in¬ 
stitutions of every kind must be regarded as yet in their infancy. None 
but those who have participated in the struggle can have any adequate 
conception of the difficulties and embarrassments attending the efforts 
to build up these institutions on just principles in frontier States, com¬ 
posed of heterogeneous elements gathered from almost every quarter of 
the globe. Of course it is expected that in new communities man’s 
earliest efforts must be put forth for the supply of his material wants, 
and for his protection against the destructive tendencies of natural 
forces. But he also soon finds himself compelled to guard against the 
ravages of the rapacious and vindictive passions of his fellow-men. 
Hence penal institutions are, unfortunately, among the prime necessities 
of a State, while yet its resources are undeveloped and the views of its 
people are as diverse as their origin and the circumstances under which 
their opinions have been formed. These conditions inevitably lead to 
inadequate, conflicting, and unwise legislation, rendering it quite im¬ 
possible to provide those comprehensive and far-sighted arrangements 
so necessary to secure the reformation as well as the proper restraint of 
the vicious and the criminal at a time when, above all others, such 
measures would prove the most potent in tempering the spirit and 
shaping the policy of the institutions, which are to be as enduring as the 
State, and which are, indeed, to become a part of the State itself. 

Population and commanding position. 

The population of Minnesota at the present time is 527,500, or more 
than three times as great as in 18G0. It is situated on that central line 
which is nearly equidistant from the two great oceans. The head of the 
11 unsalted sea,” which is also the beginning of the chain of lakes reaching 
through the Saint Lawrence to the Atlantic, and the source of the Bather 
of Waters, connecting it with the Mexican Gulf, are alike within its 
boundaries. Through the Mississippi it stretches forth its hands 
to the tropical, while through the Bed River of the North and 
its connections it reaches to the Arctic zone. The Northern Pacific 
Railroad, opening up the shortest and easiest pathway “ across the 
continent,” has its eastern terminus, with its numerous branches, 
within the borders of the State, whose area is more than 83,000 square 
miles, and whose ample domain is capable of sustaining a population 
equal to that of half of the entire United States at the present time. The 
Canadian Pacific Railway, whose construction will undoubtedly be com¬ 
menced near our northern frontier, and be vigorously prosecuted during 
the present year, will have its connections with the vast system already 
spreading its iron net-work over our prairies, and thus making our ter¬ 
ritory teem with the commercial life of two hemispheres. These facts 
have a tendency to give to the State a prominence and an importance 
that are keenly appreciated by its leading minds, and by those who, 
H. Ex. 185-27 




418 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1S73. 


while struggling to shape the policy of its institutions, are laying the 
foundations of a future whose influence must be little short of illim¬ 
itable. 


The institutions of Minnesota. 

The institutions at present existing, which bear upon crime and are 
under the immediate care of the State, are: I. The educational, or pre¬ 
ventive. II. The benevolent, or humane. III. The penal and reform¬ 
atory. 

I. The Educational Institutions consist: 1. Of the State University 
at Saint Anthony, with 250 pupils, and maintained at a cost to the State 
during the past year of $21,000. 2. Of three State normal schools for 
the special training of teachers, located respectively at Winona, Man¬ 
kato, and Saint Cloud, and giving instruction during the year 1872 to 
more than 500 embryo teachers. The current expenses of these semina¬ 
ries defrayed by the State last year were $25,000. For the present year 
they will amount to $30,000. The amount expended upon buildings 
already erected and in progress is more than $200,000. 3. Of 3,000 
common schools, scattered throughout all the organized townships, in¬ 
cluding numerous high schools in the cities, which have already at¬ 
tained a standard of commanding excellence. The number instructed 
in these schools during the past year was 120,352, at a cost of about 
$1,000,000; while the number totally uninstructed and left to recruit 
the “ignoble army” of illiterates in the State, was 59,6G8. The productive 
school fund now amounts to $2,780,559, being the fifth in magnitude in 
this country, with six-sevenths of the u school-lands” from which the 
fund is derived are yet unsold. The increase in the number of common 
schools last year was about 200. 

These facts are brought forward here on account of the vital rela¬ 
tions which exist between education and crime, between the prevent¬ 
ive and the penal institutions of a State—relations which, in all our 
discussions of the latter, should be distinctly recognized. A true educa¬ 
tion is the surest preventive of crime, and no reformation can be effective 
or permanent which does not address itself to the enduring soul of the 
fallen being. 

II. The Benevolent Institutions.— These comprise* the hospital for the 
insane at Saint Peter, the institute for the deaf and dumb and the 
blind at Faribault, and the soldiers’ orphans’ home at Winona. These 
institutions are all projected and supported on the most liberal scale, 
and are conducted according to the latest developments in the medical 
and educational sciences. 

III. The Penal and Reformatory Institutions, comprising: 1. The state 
prison at Stillwater, on Lake Saint Croix. 2. The State reform school 
for both sexes, near Saint Paul. 3. The jails established and supported 
under county supervision. 


1. The state prison. 

Location. —The buildings for this institution are located at the mouth of 
a short ravine, between two high and deep bluffs fronting on the lake, 
and running back to a point of junction with the main ridge of which 
the bluffs are spurs. This ravine comprises about four acres of ground. 
The foundations of the buildings rest upon piles driven into the marshy 
soil beneath. The sum of $125,000 has been expended upon the build- 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MINNESOTA. 419 

ings, and $40,000 more will be used during the coming year in improve¬ 
ments. 

History .—This prison was established and located in 1858, the year 
in which the State emerged from its territorial condition. There were 
at that time but three u prominent points” in the State—Saint Paul, 
Saint Anthony, and Stillwater. Saint Paul had the capital; Saint 
Anthony secured the university, and Stillwater the state prison. In 
those early days the location of State institutions was controlled less 
by public than by private considerations. The selection of the grounds 
for the state prison was singularly unfortunate. 

Buildings and grounds .—There are but two permanent buildings occu¬ 
pied by the prison. They are located on opposite sides of the in¬ 
closed space near the base of the bluffs forming the ravine. The main 
prison building is on the left of the space inclosed, and is about 210 
feet long by 40 in width. This contains the cells, (a portion of which ex¬ 
tend to the third story,) the domestic department of the institution, the 
officers’quarters, and the family of the steward; the cells themselves 
being in the rear. It is built of limestone, and is very substantial and 
neat in appearance. The other building, which is on the right, and fur¬ 
ther to the rear, is also of stone, and two stories high, with basement. 
This contains the workshops, store-rooms, and engine and boiler rooms. 
There is a wall along the front of the premises, and the three other sides 
are inclosed by a plank fence some 12 or 45 feet high, flanked by a walk 
for the sentries, and surmouuted by guard-houses for those officers when 
on duty. A sewer, as yet quite inadequate to meet the necessities of the 
prison, passes through the grounds and discharges into the lake in front. 
The cells are ventilated by small tubes connecting with shafts passing 
through the roof. 

System of management .—The associate system of labor is employed. 
The convicts work in groups in the several shops under the supervision 
of an overseer or foreman, and a guard. In all other respects the cel¬ 
lular system is adopted. The food is taken exclusively in the cells, and 
the men are constantly confined, excepting during the hours allotted to 
labor. 

General administration .—The prison is under the general supervision 
of a board of three inspectors appointed by the governor, by and with 
the advice and consent of the senate, for three years, one member re¬ 
tiring each year. The warden is appointed in the same manner. All 
the subordinate officers are appointed by the warden, excepting the 
chaplain and the physician, who are selected by the inspectors. As is 
usual in such cases, political considerations influence more or less the 
selection of these officers. It is but just, however, to say that all the 
officers of the institution have been chosen with excellent discrimina¬ 
tion and good judgment. 

System of labor. — The contract system of labor prevails in the 
prison. The existing contract extends through a period of nine years, 
the price being 45 cents per day for each man employed. Ten per cent, 
of the convicts are reserved for the uses of the institution in its domes¬ 
tic department. The branches of industry pursued are few and simple, 
being limited principally to the production of wooden ware, barrels, 
window-sashes, doors, and a small amount of cabinet and carpenter 
work. The average duration of a day’s work is ten and one-lialf hours 
throughout the year, although in the winter season only eight and one- 
half hours are occupied. In cases of over-work, which are, however, 
rare, the convict is allowed to participate in his earnings. 

Discipline .—The discipline is firm yet mild and eminently humane. 


420 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


As a general rule, talking is prohibited among the convicts, except in 
cases where it is necessary in carrying forward the work. The officers 
exercise a kind and paternal influence over the unfortunate men under 
their charge. Cheerfulness prevails to a remarkable degree among the 
convicts. They appear in this respect more like laborers working for 
wages and enjoying the fruits of their toil than like men convicted of 
crime and undergoing the deprivations of penal servitude. There seems 
to be an entire absence of that feeling of sullen depression so character¬ 
istic of convicts submitting to the rigors of an iron rule. 

Punishments. —Corporal inflictions are never resorted to. For the 
graver offenses, confinement on bread and water until penitence is se¬ 
cured is the principal reliance. The ball and chain, as a penalty for 
attempts to escape, is imposed upon the more incorrigible. But all 
those forms of punishment calculated to inflict bodily torture or create 
a sense of indignity are entirely discountenanced and avoided. 

Incentives to good conduct .—Under a law of the legislature, passed in 
1867, a convict may abridge the term of his sentence by exemplary con¬ 
duct. By the terms of this act two days may be deducted for the first 
month of good behavior, four days for the second, and six days for each 
succeeding month, provided that the right to such deductions is not for¬ 
feited by subsequent misconduct. Bestoration to citizenship through 
the pardoning power follows a continuous course of unexceptional 
behavior. 

Pardons .—The governor of the State has the authority to pardon a 
criminal before the expiration of his term of sentence. This power is 
sometimes exercised on the recommendation of the warden for good con¬ 
duct, sometimes through petitions of influential citizens, pleading miti¬ 
gating circumstances, and the like. The commanding general of the 
department of Dakota has occasionally pardoned prisoners incarcerated 
for military offenses, and the President of the United States exercises 
the same power in behalf of offenders against the laws of the General 
Government. 

Instruction. —No systematic instruction, either secular or religious, is 
imparted to the prisoners as a whole, except during one hour on Sunday, 
when services are held in the chapel of the institution. A small library 
is provided for the men, and they use it freely, being encouraged to do 
so by their thoughtful and humane officers, who manifest the warmest 
interest in the welfare of their charge. 

Sanitary condition. —Considering the location of the prison, its pecu¬ 
liar surroundings, and the many inconveniences to which it is compelled 
to submit, the health of the convicts is quite remarkable. This is no 
doubt accounted for by the extreme care of their officers in preserving 
the utmost cleanliness in every part of the buildings occupied. The 
food is of the best quality, carefully cooked, and regularly served, with 
an abundance for every man according to his necessities" The variety 
observed in providing the meals through the week is very judicious and 
well calculated to preserve a healthful tone in the digestive orgaus. 
Bathing is required as a regular duty, and everything that conduces to 
health is carefully regarded in the administration of the affairs of the 
prison. The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving day, and Christmas, are 
u legal holidays” in this institution. On these days the convicts are 
served with as good a dinner as any first-class hotel can provide. They 
are allowed the freedom of the prison. They visit each other in their 
cells, converse, sing, and enjoy a wholesome social reunion. Consider¬ 
ing the serious lack of material aids and of the ordinary conveniences 
of such places, this prison is, in a generous sense, a model of wise, 


REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF MINNESOTA. 


421 


humane, and efficient management. Time and a better appreciation of 
the true ends of penal discipline will do much, it is to be hoped, to miti¬ 
gate the evils arising from the unfortunate circumstances of its location 
and earlier history. 

The total cost of maintaining the prison, in 1872, was $30,485 ; the 
earnings from convict labor were $14,973; excess of expenditure over 
earnings, $15,512 ; cost per prisoner, $168.81. 

II. State Reform School. —This institution was established and opened 
under State auspices, in January, 1863. It occupies sixty-three acres 
of ground about three miles from the business portion of Saint Paul, 
on the main road to Minneapolis. It is about seven miles from the 
latter city and is located on a commanding eminence overlooking a large 
extent of country, in an eminently healthful situation. 

The total cost of buildings to the present time has been $30,000; the 
total number of boys committed to the institution, 180; the total num¬ 
ber of girls, 15. The sexes are entirely separated from each other. The 
annual current expenses are about $20,000. 

As far as possible the “family plan” has been adopted in the man¬ 
agement of the institution. As only the main building has yet been 
erected, this plan cannot be fully carried out in practice. The inmates 
of the institution are brought under such influences as prevail in a well- 
governed and well-regulated home, with good instruction and a firm 
though kind and paternal discipline. The rewards and punishments 
are of the natural hind in use in all well-managed homes. The “ lock¬ 
up” has never been used; all the professional appliances of prison dis¬ 
cipline are scrupulously avoided. 

The inmates are well fed, well clothed, well instructed, and well dis¬ 
ciplined. They are allowed an abundance of play, and yet they are re¬ 
quired to work systematically and to study attentively. In the words 
of the very efficient superintendent, Rev. J. G. Riheldaffer, “ school-room . 
instruction is the first great worh of the institution. We do not hold these 
children for the present pecuniary advantage of the State, but for com¬ 
pulsory education , and for a preparation for the work of life.” These are 
noble words, and they should form the key-note to the management of 
every reformatory and penal institution. 

A large garden of fruits and vegetables is cultivated, and many of the 
boys are required to labor in it during the summer. A considerable 
number are employed in the domestic department of the institution. In 
addition to these employments, there is a tin-shop in which the boys in 
squads of twelve are learning the tinuer ? s trade ; a shoe-shop, with every 
facility for learning that trade; and a tailors shop, in which they learn 
to make and repair their own clothing. 

To these educational, domestic, and industrial means are superadded 
religious instruction in which our obligations to God and to our fellow- 
men, and our accountability to God together with the noble rewards 
which attend a life of virtue and the fearful penalties of a life of vice 
and crime, are held up as the incentives to a patient continuance in well¬ 
doing. 

Considering the youth of this institution and of the State which fosters 
it, with the yet stinted means at its disposal, it is a decided success. 
The boys who have been discharged from it are for the most part con¬ 
ducting themselves in such a manner as fully to vindicate the wisdom 
of the means employed to save them from a life of crime, and make 
them honest, upright, worthy citizens. 

III. County jails. —With very few exceptions these institutions in 
this State are of the most primitive sort and scarcely fit for the accom- 


422 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


modation of the beasts of the held. This is an apparently inevitable 
consequence of the peculiar state of things existing in a new country, 
with a yet meager population, and with resources only partially de¬ 
veloped. 

In several of the larger cities—Saint Paul, Stillwater, Winona, Hastings, 
and Kocliester—very creditable buildings have been erected for the uses 
of the jails in their respective counties. In many cases, however, the 
jail is but a meager appendage to a splendid court-house, a single room 
being supplied with cells for the confinement of persons accused of 
crime and awaiting trial. 

At Winona, however, a large and commodious buildiug has been 
erected for the exclusive occupancy of the county jail, the sheriff, and his 
under-officers. This building is of stone, is finely located, and is really 
a model of its kind. The cell-block is two stories in height, and the 
cells are entirely of wrought iron placed back to back in the center of 
the prison, and are surrounded by a spacious and airy corridor, paved 
with heavy boiler-iron. It is kept scrupulously neat in all respects, 
while escape from it seems a physical impossibility. 


12. Mississippi. 

By General B. B. Eggleston, president of the board of inspectors of the state prison. 

The management of the state prison has, under the provisions of an 
act passed by the legislature entitled u An act for the regulation, con¬ 
trol and support of the penitentiary,’ 7 approved March 28, 1872, under¬ 
gone a marked change for the better in almost every respect, and 
notably has this been the case in the treatment of the convicts. Hith¬ 
erto these unfortunate outcasts have not received that care and atten¬ 
tion for which humanitarians in this country and in Europe (whose efforts 
are now happily about to be crowned with success) have so long and 
persistently labored. Up to the 3d day of last May, when the present 
superintendent, Mr. 0. W. Loomis, took charge of the prison, unneces¬ 
sarily cruel punishments, which might justly be termed the relics.of a 
barbarous age, still prevailed. But the people of our State have not 
been unmoved spectators of the universal movement in the direction 
of prison reform, and the public sentiment was significantly expressed 
by the legislature in the act above referred to, whereby corporal and 
every other species of punishment, not tending to enforce the rules and 
regulations necessary to prison government, Avere abolished. And this 
is better shown by reference to the thirteenth section of the act, which 
reads as follows: 

That hereafter the head of no female convict shall be shorn, and no punishment by 
blows or stripes shall be inflicted, under any circumstances whatever, upon convicts of 
either sex ; but it shall be the duty of the inspector to prescribe such punishment, in 
the form of solitary confinement in a dark cell, or such other mode as they may deem 
fit and expedient; and it shall be the duty of the superintendent to keep a merit and 
demerit roll of the conduct of the convicts, and he shall, from time to time, report the 
same to the governor, who shall shorten the term of service of any convict at the rate 
of three days for each month of said term, whenever said merit-roll shall indicate that 
said convict has been guilty of no violation of the rules of the penitentiary. 

Under the above and other provisions of law, and in the exercise of a 
wise discretion, the superintendent has succeeded in transforming the 
convicts, who came under his supervision morose and discontented, into 
a remarkably orderly class of men. 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF MISSISSIPPI. 


423 - 


They seem now to feel something of that self-respect which is so in¬ 
valuable in law-abiding communities. Every encouragement consistent 
with prison regulations is afforded to develop the best qualities of 
their nature, and to cultivate in them moral principles which will here¬ 
after tend to make them better and more useful citizens. 

The superintendent has, as far as possible, caused them to feel that 
they are governing themselves, rather than being slavishly governed, 
and the result is apparent in the remarkable fact that, out of over four 
hundred convicts, he has found it necessary, under the present regula¬ 
tions, to punish only two. 

Beligious instruction is regularly administered to them, and they 
attend divine worship in their chapel every Sabbath with apparent will¬ 
ingness, and some show of devotion; they also attend a well-managed 
Sabbath-school, established for them within the prison; they have the 
advantage of literary recreation in the use of a library, maintained by a 
fee of 25 cents for admission of visitors to the institution; and once a 
year, on Christmas day, they are allowed the use of the prison hall, and 
free communication with one another. 

The superintendent has also shown a very commendable zeal in 
another important direction, viz, in the distribution and apportion¬ 
ment of labor. Making himself thoroughly acquainted with the habits 
and dispositions of the convicts, he assigned to them that kind of labor 
to w T hich, from their mental and physical capacities, they were best 
adapted; and in no case has an undue amount of labor been given to 
a man as a punishment, the superintendent humanely claiming the ob¬ 
ject of a criminal’s incarceration to be a reformation of his character 
rather than a vindictive punishment of his crime. 

By these means he has acquired an influence over the heads and hearts 
of these unfortunates, which has enabled him in his first annual report 
to the board of inspectors to exhibit a greater amount and better 
quality of work in every department of labor than has marked the close 
of any previous year. He has encouraged among them a spirit of emu¬ 
lation, and the result has been most satisfactory. To use his own 
words, “ The most contented and cheerful prisoners we have are those 
who evince the greatest interest in their work, and endeavor to com¬ 
plete what they have to do in the most expeditious and workmanlike 
manner.” 

The above remarks apply only to prisoners within the walls of the 
penitentiary, and who are, consequently, under the immediate personal 
supervision of the superintendent. There is another class of prisoners 
referred to in his report as u prisoners working on railroads.” Owing 
to want of accommodation for all the prisoners in the present building, 
it has been, for the past few years, found necessary, under the authority 
of law^, to lease the labor of the surplus convicts without the prison 
wails. 

They have been employed on plantations and in the construction of 
railroads. For their protection, the most jealous restrictions have been 
placed upon the lessees; nevertheless, the position of this particular 
class has been a source of much public uneasiness. The legislature, 
during its last session, though it inaugurated many wholesome reforms 
and abolished many objectionable features in the prison management, 
did not feel that it could make any changes for the better in this direc¬ 
tion, except prospectively. It made provision for the purchase of a 
site for, and the construction of, a new building, which will, when com¬ 
pleted, afford ample accommodation for all our convicts within its walls. 
The board of inspectors show a keen appreciation of this unsatisfactory 


424 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


mode of employing convicts* labor, as will be seen by reference to their 
first annual report to the governor. The superintendent himself, in his 
report to the inspectors, in which he describes at length the condition of 
this class of convicts and their removal from the ameliorating influences 
which he is enabled to throw around those within the walls, thus gives 
expression to his very great anxiety on this subject: 

But I submit that it is prejudicial to the best interests of the prisoners; and that the 
very intent of the law itself is defeated when they are thus employed. The object in 
sending a prisoner to the penitentiary is, first, to prevent crime; and, secondly, the 
reformation of the criminal. It is the imperative duty of those having prisoners in 
charge to labor to effect this reformation ; and it is a matter of impossibility to enforce 
the same discipline outside the prison walls which is enforced within. 

No doubt these earnest appeals in behalf of this class of convicts will 
have their legitimate effect in inducing the legislature to hasten the 
work of completing the new prison building. It is believed that the 
legislature will, at the same time, testify its appreciation of the results 
of partial improvement by the adoption, at the earliest possible moment, 
of a thorough and complete system of prison reform. 


13. Missouri. 

[No formal report was received from this State, but the two delegates, 
Mr. Miller and General Miner, commissioned by the governor to repre¬ 
sent Missouri in the Congress of Baltimore; learning this fact, handed in 
the following memorandum:] 

Having heard from the corresponding secretary of the National Prison 
Association that he had received no report on the penal institutions of 
Missouri, we, who are delegates from that State to this congress, beg 
leave to submit the following on the present condition of such institu¬ 
tions, with the regret that it must, of necessity, be so meager and in¬ 
complete. 

Missouri has only one penitentiary, which is located at Jefferson City. 
It now contains some nine hundred convicts, of whom about twenty-five 
are women. The inspectors are State officers, consisting of the auditor, 
treasurer, and attorney-general, who hold their position ex-officio. 

Under the earnest recommendations of the governor and the board 
of guardians, we are confident that our penitentiary will be placed, by 
the legislature now in session, on a higher ground of reform to the con¬ 
vict and of usefulness to the State. This institution has been made, 
sjnce its erection in 1836, the theater of experiments of almost every 
modern system of management. The State itself has undertaken the 
management of its labor as well as its discipline. It lias been leased 
out for a term of years to a company, with full control given to them 
over the prisoners. At present the labor of the men is hired to various 
individuals and for varied industrial pursuits. Under all these modes 
of management, the institution has been a source of heavy expense to 
the State ; it has never been self-sustaining. 

The system of management is the congregate, and every privilege is 
allowed to the inmates consistent with the public safety. The principle 
of kindness, as far as possible, is the present rule of action. The lash, 
is abolished and the striped garments will be only retained, it is hoped, 
until some exterior walls now in process of construction shall be finished. 
The labor of the convicts is hired at 40 cents a day. 

The education of the convicts is at present utterly neglected. Yet we 



PENAL INSTITUTIONS OE NEBRASKA. 425 

anticipate, among- the coming improvements, a system of instruction 
that will provide tor a teacher-in-chief, with the power of taking from 
the convicts a suitable number of competent assistants ; and that ample 
tune will be given to impart to all illiterate convicts a fair common- 
school education. 

From the experiments made, we are convinced that, for the class of 
convicts now in the Missouri penitentiary, the congregate system is by 
far the best. We cannot commend the adoption of any plan of man¬ 
agement that, by a coercive system of silence and unceasing labor, for 
hours, on one branch ot industry, in one position, and with downcast 
eye, tends to crush out the manhood of the convict, and which, by forc¬ 
ing his thoughts continually in the direction of his own sufferings, is 
calculated to breed feelings of revenge toward the State, and of hatred 
toward his keepers. Our observation and experience confirm us in the 
belief that the social nature of the prisoner should be exercised and 
developed under proper guidance, and that, so far from any evil result- 
ing, this plan may be made a powerful element of individual reforma¬ 
tion. 

The system of county jails in our State is one that requires many 
changes. We except the new jail of Saint Louis, which, in all the ele¬ 
ments of a good prison, has scarcely its superior in the United States. 

The city of Saint Louis has a house of refuge and a work-house ; but 
the State itself has no reformatory institutions, no industrial schools, no 
houses of industry and correction. We earnestly hope and believe that 
the question of’ organizing these esssential agencies in a system for the 
prevention and repression of crime will receive the early attention and 
favorable action of the legislature. 


14. Nebraska. 


By Rev. J. TT. Snowden, Missionary A. S. S. Union, and acting chaplain of the State peni¬ 
tentiary. 

The great aim here is to educate the head and heart, reform and 
elevate, making the prisoners feel that they can regain what they have 
lost, and be prepared, socially, morally, and religiously, to assume citizen¬ 
ship, and enter anew upon the honorable duties of free life. 

The discipline, though firm, has been tempered with much mildness. 
The Bible has been publicly opened and studied, the word of God is 
preached every Sabbath. From the prison vaults songs of Zion ascend 
daily. Three nights in the week a common school is conducted with 
marked success, in which Indians, Africans, and whites are taught to 
read and write. Instructive lectures are, from time to time, delivered 
to the prisoners. A literary society has been formed and meets weekly. 
The convicts are also supplied with books, and with religious and 
literary papers. Of forty-eight prisoners discharged within the past 
eighteen months, only one was unable to read and write. Several have 
given unmistakable evidence that they have passed from death unto 
life, and their reformation is complete. 

Mr. Henry C. Campbell, the present warden, is a humane and efficient 
officer. May God more abundantly bless the great work of reclaiming 
and reforming the fallen and guilty. 


426 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


15. New Hampshire. 


By Iler. Win. Clark, D. I)., formerly chairman of the joint legislative committee on prisons. 

New Hampshire contains a population of 313,300 souis; an area of 
0,280 square miles. Its inhabitants are mainly Americans by birth, and 
descendants of the Puritans. In late years the enlargement of manu¬ 
facturing enterprises, and the development of our extensive water-power 
have brought in a considerable foreign element. In general education, 
morals, good order, obedience to law, and industry, the State will compare 
favorably with any of her sister States. 

Our penal institutions are the state prison at Concord, and our ten 
county jails, one in each county. 

Refractory prisoners are generally subdued and brought to obedience 
by kind, yet firm, moral treatment; where this fails, confinement in dark 
cells, with diminution of food, is generally effective. Prison inmates are 
men, nothwitkstanding their violation of law and incarceration; self- 
respect they have still, to which, if appeal be generously made, their 
dormant manhood will re appear, and they often show themselves pos¬ 
sessed of noble qualities. This is the kind of discipline which, in the 
main, characterizes the government of the New Hampshire state 
prison, and which, its officers testify, renders its management compara¬ 
tively easy. The commutation law, which euables prisoners by good 
conduct to shorten their terms of imprisonment, has proved an effective 
agent of discipline and reformation. 

One of the results of our system of universal education in New Hamp¬ 
shire is, that but a comparatively small number of the inmates of our 
state prison are uuable, on committal, to read and write. Of the eighty 
prisoners confined April 30, 1872, seventy-two could read and write; six 
could read, but not write; two only could neither read nor write. The 
chaplain maintains a school for such notwithstanding the smallness of 
the number. 

There is a good library belonging to the prison containing about fifteen 
hundred volumes, mostly valuable books, which are much read by the 
prisoners. The legislature appropriates $100 per annum to keep up and 
increase the library. 

The prison enjoys the constant labors of a faithful and experienced 
chaplain. At 9 a. m. on the Sabbath he preaches in the chapel of the 
prison building, when all the male prisoners are required to be present. 
At 10 he holds religious services with the female convicts, which are 
followed by a service in the hospital. At 1.30 p. m. a Sabbath-school 
is held in the female department. At 3.45 a similar service is con¬ 
ducted in the male division by prison officers, assisted by Christian 
gentlemen of different religious denominations, who volunteer their ser¬ 
vices for this work. The remainder of the Sabbath the chaplain devotes 
to private conversation with the prisoners in their cells. Attendance 
on the Sabbath-school is not compulsory; but more than half the 
prisoners attend voluntarily. A convicts’ prayer-meeting is held every 
Wednesday evening, which is well attended by the prisoners, who take 
part in the exercises of prayer and singing, with propriety of demeanor, 
and with much apparent, and it may be hoped sincere, devotion. At 
any rate, its influence upon the tone of the conduct of the prisoners 
is indubitably and decidedly good. 

The only industry carried on at present is that of the manufacture of 
cabinet-ware. The labor is let to a contractor at 95 cents a day per 
man. The annual profit exceeds the expenses. The expenditures for 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 427 

the year ending April 30,1S72, were $14,429.85; the earnings $19,930.88: 
a net gain to the State of $5,501.03. 

The system is that of congregate, as distinguished from cellular, 
imprisonment. 

Perfect silence is maintained among the prisoners while at work, and, 
indeed, at all other times; nor are they permitted to communicate by 
signs more than by words. 

The prison is well ventilated and kept clean and wholesome. The 
cells and halls are swept daily, and often throughly washed. The 
clothing and bedding are comfortable. The food is ample, varied, well 
prepared, palatable, and nourishing, as the generally hale appearance of 
the prisoners clearly shows. The physician daily visits the prison, 
taking a kindly care of the sick and of chronic invalids. Mortality 
among prisoners is probably greater than among the same number of 
law-abiding persons, for the reason that many convicts enter prison 
with constitutions impaired by vice and crime. The deaths among the 
1,522 inmates of the prison during the sixty years of its existence have 
been 102, or at the rate of 1^ per year on the average. 

On the whole, the government and management of our state prison, 
in its several departments, will compare, I think, favorably with most 
institutions of the kind in our country. The prison building might be 
improved; the dormitories are too small; and other architectural 
deficiencies are patent. But considering that the prison was erected 
two generations back, its arrangements and conveniences are quite 
tolerable. Its government is firm, but humane. The physical and 
moral Avelfare of its unfortunate inmates is kindly regarded and, to a 
good degree, promoted. The institution is creditable to the character 
of the State. 

Our county jails are very far from being models. The jail system 
stands in need of radical reforms. 

The reform school, established by the State some fifteen years ago, 
near the city of Manchester, was designed as a home and school for 
idle, vagrant, and vicious children. There was found to be a rapidly 
increasing number of children of both sexes in our manufacturing 
towns, especially the children of foreigners, who were growing up in idle¬ 
ness, immorality, vice, and crime, and who, unless checked and reformed, 
would become dangerous members of the communit}^, and soon be can¬ 
didates for the state prison. To save the children and train them to 
honest industry, the reform school was established, and it has, in some 
good degree, accomplished the hoped-for objects. 

The inmates of the school make good, many of them rapid, improve¬ 
ment in the ordinary branches of common education; but their moral 
improvement is not so encouraging. This should not be cause of sur¬ 
prise, as most of them had previously lived under evil influences and 
formed vicious habits. Still, the larger part leave the school improved 
in character and become useful members of society. 

A farm is connected with the school, on which all the boys work, 
more or less. In the winter they are employed to some extent in 
caning chair-seats. The girls are taught sewing, house-work, &c. The 
managers feel that there should be introduced into the establishment 
some of the usual trades, believing that such a measure would be for 
the best good of the inmates. 

A great desideratum in the reform school is a chaplain, who would 
devote himself wholly to the moral and religious instruction and train¬ 
ing of the scholars. 

A society to aid discharged convicts was formed a few years since in 


428 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF’1871*. 


the State, but as yet is small in membership and means, and has not 
acquired a large influence, or accomplished very important results. 


1C. New Jersey. 

By John F. Hageman, Esq. 

The State of New Jersey is giving increased attention to the science 
of penal law and prison reform. It has made more advance within the 
last ten years than in the preceding half century. It is, however, only 
a follower and not a leader in this noble cause, which is attracting the 
attention of civilized nations as the most inviting field of Christian phi¬ 
lanthropy—the most important branch of social science. It is not that 
the people of New Jersey are less philanthropic and humane than their 
fellow-citizens of other States that they have given such a tardy support 
to this great movement; nor is it that they occupy a lower grade than 
others in education, religion, and public wealth. 

The State claims now to be ranked among the foremost States of the 
Union in its system of public schools. In addition to this and its pros¬ 
perous normal school, it is distinguished for its several colleges and sem¬ 
inaries, literary, scientific, and theological, of world-wide fame and influ¬ 
ence, and for its large number of Christian churches and charitable 
institutions, all creating an enlightened and Christian public sentiment 
throughout the State. And no State is in a better financial condition 
and better able to respond to the calls of reform measures than New 
Jersey. 

If our people have been apathetic, and have lagged behind in this re¬ 
form movement, it may have been due, in some measure, to their strong 
confidence in the unsullied character of the judiciary of the State, to 
which they have intrusted the enforcement of its penal laws for the re¬ 
pression of crime. With no corrupt connivance between the courts and 
criminals, they have been assured that the machinery of their legal tri¬ 
bunals are in the hands of pure, honest, and learned officials. It may 
be that with such confidence in the bench and bar of the State, for the 
due punishment of crime, they may have become too indifferent to that 
feature of punishment which relates to the reformation of the convict, 
as well as toward juvenile reformatories for the prevention of crime. 

But the philanthropic heart and conscience of New Jersey have been 
touched by the appeals and labors of prison-discipline associations of 
other States, and it is hoped that henceforth vigorous and co-operative 
efforts will be made to win the prisoner back to virtue, which is not a 
hopeless work. The late Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, before the 
Society for Promoting Political Inquiries, convened at the house of Ben¬ 
jamin Franklin, in 1787, in speaking of the effects of public punishment, 
said : “ I have no more doubt of every crime having its cure in moral and 
physical influence than I have of the efficacy of the Peruvian bark in 
curing the intermittent fever. The only difficulty is to find out the 
proper remedy or remedies for particular vices.” 

The public institutions of the State which are strictly penal are: 1. 
The state prison; 2. The county jail. And those which are chiefly reform¬ 
atory and preventive are: 3. The State Reform School for Juvenile Of¬ 
fenders; 4. The State Industrial School for Girls. 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NEW JERSEY. 


429 - 


I .—The state prison. . 

This is situated near the Delaware, in South Trenton. It was built in 
183G, in place of the old Lamberton prison. It was designed to carry 
out the solitary system, which was then approved, but which has been 
since abandoned as injurious to health and mind, expensive and ill- 
adapted to the reformation of the prisoners. The building has been 
enlarged from time to time by additional wings, one of which, known as 
the east wing, has just been completed, with 170 cells, constructed and 
finished upon modern, reformatory principles, as to light, ventilation, 
cleanliness, and security. The whole number of cells in the prison is 
522; all are lighted with gas at night, as are also the public rooms and 
halls. The whole building is warmed by steam, and under its present 
careful management it is not subject to the charge of being utterly unfit 
for a prison, but it really contains all the elements of a suitable building 
for such purpose. Tlie average number of prisoners during the past 
year was 527. 

General administration .—By recent legislation the government of the 
prison has been improved. Ln 18G9 the prison act was revised and 
amended, and the office of supervisor was created, the appointment to 
be made by the governor, chancellor, chief justice, and attorney-general 
of the State, for the term of three years, with a salary of $4,000 a year. 
This officer, and the comptroller and treasurer of the State, constitute 
a board of supervisors. The keeper and the five inspectors are chosen 
annually by the legislature; the constitution requires this; the keeper 
receives a salary of $4,000, and appoints his deputies. The judges of 
the supreme court and court of errors, and the members of the legisla¬ 
ture, constitute a board of visitors. The annual election of the keeper 
and inspectors by the legislature destroys the stability of the prison 
administration. Politics will, in this way, interfere with the appoint¬ 
ment, and frequent and uncertain changes in the offices of keeper and 
inspectors are hurtful to the good management of the institution. There 
is no central power supervising and directing the entire penal system of 
the State. Such a power, having charge of all the penal and reforma¬ 
tory institutions of the Commonwealth, with a new classification of 
crimes and the establishment of intermediate prisons, would be of great 
utility. 

Prison industries .—The present law requires every convict to be kept 
at hard labor every day except Sundays, if able to work. The original 
plan of private labor iu cells has been superseded by ample workshops, 
erected in connection with the prison, where the prisoners work to¬ 
gether in silence, and take their meals at a common table, also in silence,, 
having teachers ancl overseers in their work. Their labor is done by 
contract, which is not favorable to the labors of the moral instructor. 
But the system works well financially thus far. The convicts are happier 
and more obedient, under such a system of labor, than the former one, and 
their earnings amount to more than enough to maintain them in prison. 
The State has received this year about $28,000 from the surplus of their 
earnings after taking out the cost of their maintenance. Their earnings 
the past year amounted to $80,892.99, and their expenses were $52,414.52, 
exclusive of the salaries of officers. It may soon become wholly self- 
sustaining. 

Discipline .—The treatment of prisoners has become kind and humane. 
Xo corporeal punishment is allowed by law. The use of the parti-col¬ 
ored dress is retained to prevent the escape of prisoners from the work¬ 
shops, which are not yet as secure as they should be. The order among 


430 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


the prisoners is improved by the system of work and the reformatory 
efforts bearing upon them. Kind treatment is not lost upon them. 

Religious and secular instruction .—This is an important department of 
duty. ' As far back as 1827, in the old Lamberton prison, the students, 
of the Princeton Theological Seminary, under the inspiration of the 
Boston Prison Discipline Society, visited that prison every Sunday to 
teach the Bible and to preach to the prisoners, and the legislature 
favored it and directed rooms to be provided in the prison for that pur¬ 
pose. Tlie law has, for a great many years, authorized a supply of the 
Bible and other books to the prisoners, and also a suitable person to 
give them religious instruction. The moral instructor is now appointed 
by the governor and supervisors, with a salary of $1,000 a year, and he 
is required to devote all his time to his office. He preaches every Sab¬ 
bath in each of the four halls of the prison and recites the Moral Law, 
the Apostolic Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. The Bible and religious 
papers and books are distributed among the convicts, and are gladly 
received and read by many of them. 

The moral instructor and the other officers of the prison concur in an 
appeal for a chapel for religious services on Sundays. At present the 
prisoners are in their cells unseen, while the preaching is done in the hall 
in their hearing. It is urged, we think with good reason, that the prison¬ 
ers should all be allowed to meet together, in a chapel where they could 
see the preacher, and he see them, eye to eye; where they could sing 
together, and feel all the glow which social public worship excites. What 
a congregation five hundred prisoners would make! Ilow T an earnest and 
eloquent minister would be quickened by such an inspiring company of 
hearers! What marvelous conversions might be expected among such 
a class of men, many of whom have broken and sorrowful hearts! Such 
preaching is the divinely-prescribed means of reforming and regener¬ 
ating men, and no men are more in need of such means than prisoners, 
for whom the gospel was designed and sent. 

The legislature has appropriated $10,000 for the erection of a chapel, 
and it may be hoped that this great desideratum will soon be supplied. 

There ought to be a person employed as a secular teacher, especially 
for those prisoners who cannot read and write. At present there is no 
provision for secular instruction in the prison. This we hope will soon 
be provided. The hours of labor need not be encroached upon, for this 
instruction could be given in the evening. 

The library. —The prison library now numbers 2,500 volumes, which 
are read with interest by the prisoners. It exerts a good influence in 
the prison. 

Commutation and rewards. —The principle of remitting a part of the 
term of the sentence for good conduct, so universally commended by ex¬ 
perienced prison keepers, has been adopted in a small degree in Kew 
Jersey. The moral instructor, supervisor, and keeper, all testify to its 
happy influence on the order and good behavior of the prisoners. The 
number of those who received a remission during the last year was 215. 

The giving rewards , by allowing the prisoner to retain a portion of 
his earnings for his own use when discharged, or for the use of his 
family, has not yet been adopted in this prison. The legislature will 
probably authorize it when they next amend the prison law. 

Pardons. —This power could not be lodged in safer hands than in the 
court of pardons, which is composed of the governor, chancellor, and 
the six lay judges of the court of errors, or a majority of them. The 
number pardoned last year was 03. It is usual to extend a pardon to a 
certain class of prisoners, a little before their term expires, so as to save 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NEW JERSEY. 481 

their citizenship, since a pardon operates as a rehabilitation of the pris¬ 
oner in his civil rights. 

Discharged prisoners .—We have no adequate provision by law for 
aiding prisoners upon their discharge. The statute allows $5 to be 
paid to each convict when discharged; and the lack of State aid is not 
supplied by voluntary charitable associations. The same motives which 
would prompt efforts to reform convicts in prison ought to prompt 
efforts to save them when they go out from relapsing into a criminal 
life. This subject is receiving special attention, which will result prob¬ 
ably in the organization of an aid association, and of additional legisla¬ 
tion, perhaps a State commission to take charge of the matter. 

Deformation of prisoners .—The principle which underlies all these 
prison-reform measures rests upon the conviction that punishment, 
whose chief end is to prevent crime, is effected not merely by depriving 
the offender of the power to repeat his offense, nor by intimidating 
others from the commission of a like offense, but by reforming the char¬ 
acter of the prisoner (where he has not forfeited his life) and restoring 
him to society a better man. Superadded to these ideas of punishment 
is that one of preventing crime by training wayward and neglected 
children from the paths of vice into those of virtue. Hence our reform 
schools. New Jersey is making progress in this direction. It is not 
possible to determine how many prisoners have been reformed, nor to 
what extent they have been benefited by the efforts made for that 
purpose, for we have only just begun to make our prison a place where 
human beings might be improved in character. But we have certain 
knowledge that much good has been accomplished, and we have faith 
that in the future much more efficiency will attend the reformatory 
efforts. The number of recidivists must grow less and less. 

II .—County jails. 

There are twenty-one counties in the State, and a jail in every county, 
and in a few instances a workhouse connected with the jail. These 
county prisons are for punishment as well as for detention. As a gen¬ 
eral thing, they are insecure, filthy, unhealthy, and utterly destitute of 
reformatory power. There is no system of discipline by which they are 
governed. The care of them is rather incidentally committed to the 
sheriff; but he is under the direction of the chosen freeholders, who 
are elected more with reference to the building of bridges, &c., than to 
their qualifications to discipline prisoners and regulate prisons. In 
structure and government, with perhaps one or two exceptions, they are 
all a miserable failure. The number of convicts confined in them is too 
small to justify the expenditure of money necessary to maintain reform¬ 
atory provisions. 

Within a few j 7 ears past, a sentiment in favor of attaching a work- 
house to the jails has resulted in the experiment in three or four counties, 
but such a policy is not fully vindicated by the trial, especially in the 
rural counties. The number of prisoners is too few and fluctuating to 
warrant the outlay involved in conducting a system of prison labor. 
The character of our jails is such that our courts feel constrained to 
send too many convicts, guilty of trivial misdemeanors only, to the 
state prison. There is really no classification of prisoners in the prison 
system of the State. The jail prison laws need thorough revision. A 
county jail should be fitted and used only for the detention of persons 
awaiting trial. If several counties could unite in sustaining a penal 
prison, to be made reformatory by work and other proper appliances to 


432 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


that end, it would be an improvement upon the present plan; or if a sys¬ 
tem of intermediate prisons by the State could be adopted, these penal 
jails might be dispensed with. We are glad to believe that the present 
system cannot much longer withstand public opinion. 

III.— The State Reform School for juvenile offenders. 

In 1850 an act establishing a house of refuge was passed, and a 
building was commenced on a beautiful site at Kingston, but through 
the freaks of party politics the act was repealed and the work aban¬ 
doned, the State treasury paying for the loss and damage. Fifteen 
years were lost to the cause of this reform. But the blunder has been 
corrected by the act of 1805, which established the State reform 
school for juvenile offenders. This institution has been organized on a 
farm of 490 acres near Jamesburgh, in Middlesex County, a central and 
eligible situation. Suitable buildings have been erected, to carry out 
the plan of an open farm system, for the reformation of boys between 
eight and sixteen years of age, who shall have committed some crime 
other than murder or manslaughter, or shall be habitually disorderly, 
vagrant, or incorrigible, or otherwise fit subjects for such an institution. 
Its object is to prevent rather than to punish crime. The boys are 
taught to work on the farm, and are instructed in secular and religious¬ 
learning. The number of boys now in the institution is about 140. All 
the appliances for reformation are employed in this school. It is well 
governed. The board of control consists of the governor, chancellor, 
and chief justice of the State, by whom six trustees are appointed, and 
they exercise a supervision. The approval of a justice of the supreme 
court is required in every case of committing a boy to the school. It 
is not a prison governed by physical force, but u the Christian idea of a 
well-regulated family, with the steady pressure of kind, moral, and 
social influence governing all its discipline.” The family system, in con¬ 
tradistinction to the congregate, is the one here employed. The boys 
show their appreciation of it by not running away, even when unre¬ 
strained. A new family building has just been erected near the main 
building. There have been 300 boys in the institution since 1867. 

It is a success, and a great preventive of crime in the State. It is 
well managed and liberally supported by the State. 

IV.— The State Industrial School for girls. 

This school has been in operation for a year. It is held in a rented 
house at Pine Grove, on the Delaware, a little below Trenton. The site 
and appropriate buildings, though authorized by the legislature, have 
not yet been procured. There are seventeen young girls in the school, 
who are employed in making their own clothing, and in helping to make 
clothes for the boys’ reform school. The same provisions which con¬ 
trol the admission of boys in the reform school, and the same supervis¬ 
ion and control which the governor and other officers exercise in gov¬ 
erning the reform school, are applied in this institution for girls. The 
justices of the supreme court in their circular say : 

The institution is not a home for merely destitute or orphan children, hut is the 
offspring of a growing conviction that young females who have violated the law 
should have some other refuge assigned them than our vile common jails, where there 
are not only no barriers to constant contact with every class of criminals, but an entire 
absence of all appliances of a reformatory character. 

There are six lady managers appointed, besides the trustees, to super¬ 
vise and manage the institution. 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NEW YORK. 


433 


V. —Private preventive institutions. 

There are private orphan asylums, children’s homes, &c., in the State, 
which are not state institutions, but are sustained by churches, or pri¬ 
vate charity, some incorporated and some not, which are germane to 
those preventive schools of the State above mentioned, iu training des¬ 
titute and neglected children. But we deem it unnecessary to incum¬ 
ber our paper with further details. 

General conclusions. 

1. The penal laws need revising. The number of malaprohibita offenses 
have been so multiplied that many persons are indicted, convicted, and 
sent to the state prisons, where they fare precisely as the manslayer and 
highway robber do, for offenses which are trivial, hardly to be called 
criminal. There are too many men sent to the state prison. 

2. There should be intermediate prison houses of correction for those 
who are convicted only of misdemeanors, and for those who have been 
in a measure reformed in the state prison, to whom more privileges can 
be safely accorded of a reformatory character than a state prison can 
allow. This would, at the same time, greatly relieve the state prison. 

3. A classification of crimes, punishments, and prisons should be made 
by law, and the whole system of jails and prisons in the-State should be 
administered by some central unit power, withdrawing from county 
jails their penal character, and making them only places of detention, 
with their structure and government thoroughly changed. 

4. Larger rewards should be given to prisoners from their earnings, for 
good behavior; and more aid should be rendered to the discharged 
convict either by the State, or, what is better, perhaps, by associated 
private charity, with state aid. 

Toward this high standard New Jersey is gradually progressing. 


17. New York. 

By Elisha Harris , M. D., corresponding secretary of the Prison Association of New York. 

The penal and reformatory institutions of the State of New York are 
reported upon by the author of this paper from the stand-point of recent 
searching personal examination and nearly two years of study and official 
intercourse with them. If the view presented in the report is not flatter¬ 
ing to our State pride, the facts are certainly adapted to awaken inquiry 
and incite to the efforts needed for the improvement of these institu¬ 
tions and the increased efficiency of the penal and reformatory work to 
be done by them. . . 

The State of New York has a much greater burden of criminal popu¬ 
lation than the well-ordered and law-abiding classes of society are aware 
of. We have three state prisons; six local prisons, under county ad¬ 
ministration, named penitentiaries; sixty-seven county-jails in our sixty 
counties ; and something more than one hundred police stations, or lock¬ 
ups, in the various cities and large towns of the State. Most of the 
institutions embraced in these several classes suffer from over crowding, 
including many even of the county jails, which last are, for the most 
part, in a condition not to be commended. The number ot prisoners 
confined in the police prisons, where the detention is often only for a 

H. Ex. 185-28 




434 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


few hours, and never for more than a few days, is not known to the 
writer. The population of the other prisons named above,in the autumn 
of 1872, was as follows: State prisons,2,924; penitentiaries, 2,435; coun¬ 
ty jails, 1,G(J0; making an aggregate of G,959. The number of children 
and youths confined in the live reformatories, viz, the two houses of ref¬ 
uge,"the asylum for juvenile delinquents, and the Catholic protectories, 
(male and female,) was 4,000. This gives a total number of persons 
under restraint and in custody for violations of law, not including those 
in police jails, of 10,959. 

The total annual number of convictions for felonies by courts of record 
is less than 2,500, and by lower courts, ranking as courts of sessions, 
the number is about 80,000. 

The law which allows a prisoner to shorten his term of sentence by 
good conduct and industry is the most effective instrument of discipline 
at present known to our prison administration. The dark cell, reduced 
diet, perforated paddle, and all other forms of punishment in use, bear 
no comparison in their deterring influence and moral power to that 
of the fear of losing the small gain of time in their sentence allowed by 
the commutation law. 

A perfect understanding now exists between the board of inspectors 
of the state prisons and the New York Prison Association as to their 
mutual relations and the rights of the association as regards admission 
into the prisons and the use of agencies for the salvatiou of the con¬ 
victs after their liberation. In each of the three state prisons the cor¬ 
responding secretary is provided with an office, where he is permitted 
to send for and converse with any and all prisoners whom he may de¬ 
sire to see, and to counsel and aid with reference particularly to employ¬ 
ment after their discharge. The prison wardens, chaplains, and clerks 
have been officially instructed by the board to give all the information 
and aid desired by the association for the furtherance of this end, so 
that it may be enabled to render all the service possible, both to the 
convicts on their release and to the interests of society and humanity, 
on whose behalf the service is performed. Lists of the prisoners to be 
discharged each month are sent to the association in advance, and the 
secretary visits regularly all the prisons, and has an interview with 
every such prisoner, to ascertain his physical condition, ability, wishes, 
purposes, and whatever else may be helpful to him in enabling him to 
procure work the instant he becomes a free man, if his intention is to 
jmrsue an honest way of life. The key to the success that has followed 
this effort is the employment register, which contains classified lists 
of more than three hundred employers in thirty different occupations 
and trades of the best-organized industries all over the State. The 
private interviews with each convict during the few weeks immediately 
preceding liberation constitute the first essential step in the whole 
effort. Great pains are taken in these interviews to reach the convict’s 
judgment, conscience, and heart, and to give him definite instruction and 
advice concerning common duties and the personal safeguards and care 
which he will most need when liberated. Care is taken also, on the 
other hand, to secure in each chosen employer a true and earnest co¬ 
worker in the effort to save these men, who are struggling toward a 
return to honest industry and respectability. As no intermediate stage 
of testing or preparation is possible, under existing circumstances, in 
dealing with convicts discharged from the New York prisons, and as it 
is all-important that they be usefully employed from the day of libera¬ 
tion, and that, as far as possible, they be dissuaded from going into the 
large cities, except under rare circumstances and definite stipulations 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 


435 


concerning suitable and constant employment, it is not too much to say 
concerning the helpful interest and efforts of the employers who have 
lent us their aid in this work, that theirs is the noblest share in it. 
Modify and improve the present method of this duty as we may, and, 
indeed, as events and progress in it must require, still the employer 
who continues to offer to the liberated convict the means for honorable 
and self-supporting industry and a replacement in the ranks of honest 
citizenship, will continue to be a chief dependence in all this difficult 
task. 

Each state prison and most of the penitentiaries and larger jails make 
monthly returns to the New York Prison Association, showing the date 
of report; the name, nativity, age, and crime of the prisoner; l'rom what 
county and by what court sentenced; term of sentence; reduction of 
sentence by good conduct; former habits and occupation; his employ¬ 
ment in prison; his social relations and residence of nearest friends; 
present physical condition as regards ability to labor; amount of money 
ready for him on liberation; together with such general remarks as the 
authorities may see fit to append. A card is given to each liberated 
prisoner, on his entering upon the situation provided for him, containing 
sundry counsels, of which the following may serve as a specimen: Form 
the habit of depositing in a savings bank from 25 to 75 per cent, of your 
wages every pay day. Keep clear of all bad associates. Maintain a 
habit of useful reading; with other like maxims. It is expected by the 
association and the employer that the person thus aided will promise, 1, to 
live prudently and honorably; 2, to labor faithfully and punctually; 3, to 
abstain from intoxicating drinks; 4, to maintain self-respect; 5, to de¬ 
serve the respect of others; 6, to agree with his employer concerning 
the proportion of monthly or weekly savings. 

The Houses of Refuge, the Asylum for Juvenile Delinquents, the Catho¬ 
lic Protectories, the House of the Good Shepherd, the Children’s Aid 
Society, the Truant Homes, and other like agencies, in the metropolis 
and other large towns, are continually snatching multitudes of children 
and youth from destruction as “ brands from the burning.” They are 
adding at least 10,000 good, useful, and happy lives every year to the 
population of the country, while subtracting the same number from the 
crowded ranks of the vicious and the criminal. 


18. North Carolina. 

By Rev. G. William Wellcei', former member of the board of directors. 

The object that the National Prison Association sets before itself, in 
seeking reports from the several States, it may safely be assumed, is 
not merely to learn the number, character, and adequacy of their penal, 
reformatory, and preventive institutions, nor what may already have 
been accomplished in the direction of the work undertaken by the 
association, but also to seek data from which to learn what is yet to be 
done, to discover what hiuderances are in the way of this work, and the 
peculiar condition or character of their populations that have a bearing 
on the question, if any such exist. It is proposed, in this report, to offer 
such facts, in regard to our State, as may present the nature and condi¬ 
tion of the field for penal discipline and reformatory effort as it now 
exists; to present explanations that may account, partially at least, for 
the inadequacy of institutions for the prevention of crime and the little 



436 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


interest felt in the welfare of our criminal population ; and to indicate 
the difficulties to be encountered in the prosecution of the great work of 
the reformation of prison discipline and in the efforts to prevent the 
formation of a criminal class. 

There needs, perhaps, a glance at the topography of the State to 
enable the reader to comprehend some facts to be stated in this report. 
One of the original thirteen States, the territory of North Carolina 
began to be settled at an early date. Its area is 50,704 square miles, 
which is more than that of New York ; and yet the population is only 
1,071,361. Of this population 678,470 are white and 391,650 colored. 
Of the entire population only 3,029 are of foreign birth. The territorial 
extent and homogeneity of population will have a bearing on the 
statistics of crime in this State and on the character of its penal insti¬ 
tutions. North Carolina never has become a refuge for the vicious 
populations of other States and countries. Its reputation for obedience 
to law and its freedom from crime, before the rebellion, were known to the 
whole country. Commerce has never much flourished in this State. 
Its coast, though extended, bars ingress to its rivers by shifting sand¬ 
bars and maddened storms, which seem to keep guard against the out¬ 
side world. There are no large cities into which the shipping of the 
world, in bringing its products, brings also its crimes. Wilmington, the 
largest city in the State, has a population that does not exceed 15,000, 
while no other reaches 10,000. 

North Carolina was a slave State until 1865; manufactures were 
never encouraged; and hence its streams are not lined with manufac¬ 
turing villages that give employment in their mills to a floating popu¬ 
lation, in which are commonly found those who swell the calendar of 
crime. A very large proportion of the million of its population is and 
has ever been engaged in planting and farming. While the farms were 
valued at $143,301,065, the capital invested in manufactures and trades 
was only $9,693,703. So the population is largely rural, and thinly 
scattered over a wide domain, having no populous and wealthy centers. 
In such population capital crime is unusual. Vagrants are not tolera¬ 
ted, and hence soil is wanting for the vicious classes. This may account, 
in part, for the fact that the attention of the State was not at an earlier 
day directed to the question of penal discipline. 

That a State should grow as old as North Carolina, and yet have 
done so little in the way of preventing crime and reforming its 
vicious classes, may be owing to the fact that general intelligence has 
not been diffused among the people; that public schools are not appre¬ 
ciated, and that those who will not voluntarily tax themselves to organize 
schools and build school-houses for their own children, would naturally 
refuse to submit to taxation for the creation of institutions to prevent 
crime or reform criminals. The legislature of the State is mostly con¬ 
trolled by the tax payers; their influence is seen in the practical denial 
of the axiom that u an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 7 ’ 
Although the constitution of the State, formed iu 1868 by men of liberal 
and progressive views, provided for the creation of a board of u public 
charities, 77 yet to this hour the general assembly, under its narrow and 
obsolete views, has denied that board all means for its work, even to 
the publishing of its annual reports. While the constitution provides 
for the erection of juvenile asylums, reformatories, &e., nothing has 
been done in this direction, and the fear of taxation paralyzes every 
effort at saving the large number of youths that are left to criminal associ¬ 
ations. The recent political and social revolution has created a necessity 
of this kind, which is not felt as its pressing character demands. A pop- 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 437 

illation now requires the care of the State which, under the regime of 
slavery, rarely had its misdeeds brought to the notice of the courts. 
The slave being a chattel, most of his petty crimes were punished by 
the master, the patrol, or by a magistrate having summary jurisdiction. 
This state of affairs kept a large part of the crimes against society, not 
of the most serious character, from public view and knowledge, and 
relieved the State from direct concern. Slaves of every age being- 
property, and, by the law, the owners being, in some degree, made liable 
for their conduct, the former could not conveniently be made objects of 
such legislative care as would express itself in reformatories and work¬ 
houses, where criminal propensity could be cured, aud progress in crime 
arrested. These facts should be allowed their just force when we come 
to learn the position of the State in making provision for her existing 
criminal population. 

The constitution of the courts, the forms of legal procedure, and the 
penalties against crime were, in their main features, down to the era of 
emancipation, those of the colonial days of the State; and the progress 
in criminal jurisprudence made by other States had hardly left its im¬ 
press uporn our statutes or our courts. In all the statutory laws of 
many years is seen and felt the presence of slavery. No care was had 
for the prevention of crime but such as grew out of the deterrent- 
power of severe punishments. While the law visited condign punish¬ 
ment oq all convicted offenders, there was no wise or kind forethought 
in its provisions by which to prevent or reclaim any class of citizens 
from becoming or continuing criminals. Every person convicted of a 
felony was looked upon as degraded beyond the regard or sympathy of 
society. He was subjected to the tortures of the whipping-post, the 
branding-iron, or, still worse, the loathsome companionship of the county 
prisons. It never came into mind that the lowly, the unfortunate, or 
the fallen still retained sensibilities which could be outraged, or that 
they were worth an effort of the State to reform and save them. Deep- 
rooted prejudice still holds the public miud to barbarous modes of pun¬ 
ishment and counts offenders as outcasts, hopelessly lost to all the 
claims of humanity and religion. When in 1848 the question was sub¬ 
mitted to the vote of the electors of the State, “penitentiary” or u no 
penitentiary,” it was voted “No” with a perfect frenzy, not a single 
county, probably, voting in favor of such an institution. So until the 
revolution of 1861-’65, the only place of confinement for the convicted 
and those awaiting trial was the county jail. 

There is a jail in each of the ninety or more counties of the State. 
Among all these prisons there is not one that would be a proper place- 
in which to confine a human being under any circumstances. In their 
structure no regard is had for proper ventilation. Many of them have no 
means of being warmed even in the coldest season. Very often there is 
found in them a most offensive uncleanliness. In these loathsome 
places all whose misfortune or crime makes them liable to imprisonment 
are huddled together, young and old, the guilty and the innocent, the 
hardened criminal and the youth arrested for his first offense. Here 
they are kept without work, without instruction, without occupation of 
any kind, except to recite and listen to recitals of robbery and crime. 
Thus the jail becomes a school of crime, in which its inmates are pre¬ 
pared for a life of resistance to the laws of God and man. 

The framers of the constitution adopted by the people of North Car¬ 
olina in 1868 made provision for the future of this State as regards 
reformatory and penal institutions. Had the intentions of that body 
been realized, the State would now have a secure and comfortable state 


438 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

prison. The site selected is on a fine and healthy elevation, west of the 
city of Raleigh, on the line of the North Carolina Railroad, with a side¬ 
track running into the prison yard. At present only the foundation of 
the prison has been completed, its further progress being hindered by 
partisan legislation. The convicts are confined in temporary wooden 
huts, and are mainly employed in grading the grounds, in quarrying 
stone, and in building the exterior wall surrounding the prison yard. 

The number confined in the penitentiary during the year ending No¬ 
vember 1, 1872, was 493. Of these, 102 were whites and 391 colored; 
352 could neither read nor write; 335 were natives of the State; 4 only 
were foreigners; and 112 were under twenty years of age. Nearly three- 
fourths of the convictions were for larceny, and almost all for crimes 
against property. 

Of the 493 convicts, 33 died during the year, one in every 15, or nearly 
7 per cent. This is a fearful mortality. The cell-huts are overcrowded; 
they cannot be ventilated; and they cannot be heated in the coldest 
weather. There may be other causes, but no State can be justified in 
such waste of human life by refusing to provide well ventilated and 
comfortable cells with wholesome food and plenty of it. 

The penitentiary is managed by a board of five directors, appointed 
by the legislature, who name the warden, steward, and other officers. 

The rules, originally adopted by those whose duty it was made to 
organize it, forbid all harsh and degrading treatment. The treatment 
was intended to be such as to win to a better life by kindness. Respect 
was had to the manhood of the prisoner, who was to be treated as one 
who might create for himself an honorable future. How far the philan¬ 
thropic spirit of these regulations is carried out at present, the writer 
has no means of knowing. 

In tbe existing condition of the prison building it is not possible to 
classify the convicts. No effort is made to keep them separate for any 
moral or reformatory end. Youthful transgressors, unused to the dark 
ways of crime, are put into a hut-cell with hardened villains who have 
reached the utmost bound of human wickedness. The boy of eighteen 
who took a piece of bread to satisfy hunger, or in a momentary passion 
committed an assault upon a fellow, is placed under the immediate train¬ 
ing of those who are guilty of murder and robbery, finished adepts in 
crime. So, too, the prisoner who is repentant and tries to amend his 
life, who is industrious, obedient, and docile, is putin daily contact with 
the obstinate and ungovernable, who plot escapes and plan schemes of 
mischief. While the State provides no instructors in letters or morality, 
it nevertheless has teaching done, and sustains a school for crime, in 
which graduated villains teach the uninitiated all its secrets. 

No provision, as just iutimated, is made for scholastic or religious 
instruction. The great mass of ignorance has not a ray of light to 
pierce and enlighten its darkness during all the years of incarceration. 
From the statement previously made in regard to the illiteracy of the 
convicts, it clearly appears how much ignorance has had to do with 
sending them to state prison, and how much it is both the duty and in¬ 
terest of the State, while these neglected creatures are its wards, to 
educate them at least so as to fit them for common business life. A 
neat and comfortable chapel has been erected, but there is no chaplain, 
no Bible-class, no Sunday-school. An occasional sermon is preached to 
the prisoners, as some clergyman may be had to do it; that is all. 

It is a sad lot, indeed, for youths, and those new to crime, that 
they should not be brought under the teachings of the Christian relig¬ 
ion. It is matter of astonishment that, w hile the State fails in this 


STATE PRISON OF OREGON. 


439 


work, it is not taken up by the private effort of the Christian people 
and churches of the city of Raleigh. Here is work for a “ Young Men 7 s 
Christian Association ” that will, in some measure, make amends for 
the neglect of a Christian State. 

*0 abbreviation of sentence is allowed under the laws of the State. 
Good behavior or proof of reformation goes for nothing. There,is no 
difference between being au obedient, docile, and industrious convict 
and an obdurate and obstinate one; both go forth free when their whole 
term ot sentence is completed, and not till then. Even in a peniten¬ 
tiary there should be some recognition of right-doing, and such con¬ 
victs as demean themselves well should redeem time from the term ot 
their sentence. A measure of this kind is no novelty. It has become 
an element in prison discipline of many of our States and not a few 
foreign countries, and everywhere its good results have made themselves 
abundantly manifest. No provision is made either by the State or by 
private charity to aid and encourage, on their discharge, such prisoners 
as show some disposition to change their course and lead an honest 
life. 

It was the purpose of the legislature which made the original appoint¬ 
ment ot directors, to relieve the penitentiary of all partisan character 
in its management, but events overruled their purpose, and now, as 
in most institutions belonging to the State, not only the directors but 
all the subordinate officials are appointed in view of their partisan re¬ 
lations. It is to be hoped that time will teach a better way. 

There are no reformatory or preventive institutions in the State. The 
constitution makes provision for their creation, but so far it has remained 
a dead-letter. 


19. Oregon. 

No formal report was received from this State, but in a private letter 
received by the secretary of the National Prison Association from the 
Rev. Hr. Atkinson, he states that, as regards prison reform, things 
are moving on hopefully there, lie says that new and greatly 
improved prison constructions for the State penitentiary are in progress, 
with ample grounds; that the system of scholastic, moral, and religious 
education has been much enlarged and placed on a better footing; that 
the prison dietary is excellent ; that whipping has been abolished, and 
more humane and rational disciplinary treatment has been substi¬ 
tuted, not only without loss, but rather gain, to the good order and 
obedience of the prisoners; that a kiudly and hopeful feeling as regards 
the reformation of the prisoners begins to be’ entertained quite exten¬ 
sively by the people of the State; that, upon the whole, the state prison 
of Oregon may be said to be in a good condition, and to be doing well; 
that the chief city of the State last year completed a fine police court¬ 
room and prison, in which the rooms are well lighted and ventilated, 
and every way comfortable; that the county jail in the same place is in 
the basement of the court-house, and consequently rather damp, but 
that effort is making to improve the ventilation, and make it at once 
safe for health and more comfortable for its inmates; that a law has 
been enacted to establish a reform school for boys and girls, and trus¬ 
tees appointed to carry it into effect; and that the abundant efforts of 
late put forth in this and other countries, through congresses, public 
meetings, the pulpit, and the press, in the great work of prison reform, 



440 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 3 873. 


have borne their legitimate fruit in Oregon, in awakening in the good 
people of that State, thought, interest, and exertion. 


20. Rhode Island. 


By Rev. Augustus Woodbury , chairman of inspectors of Rhode Island state prison. 

The State of Rhode Island is divided into five counties, and in 1870 
had a population of 217,353. 

The penal and reformatory institutions of the State consist of 
the town bridewells, the city station houses, the county jails, the 
state prison, the Providence reform school, and the state farm. 
The bridewells and station houses are under the care of their re¬ 
spective municipal governments. The county jails, with the excep¬ 
tion of the jail for Providence county, are in the charge of the sheriffs 
of the counties, who are elected annually by the general assembly. 
The state prison and the Providence county jail, together with the house 
of correction, all within the same inclosure and beneath one roof, 
are administered by a board of seven inspectors appointed annually by 
the governor. The Providence reform school is under the direction of 
a board of trustees, six in number, elected annually by the city coun¬ 
cil, to whom is added the mayor ex-officio. The management of the 
state farm is placed in the hands of the board of State charities and 
corrections, consisting of six members, appointed by the governor, with 
a term of service for six years, one of the board retiring every year. 
The board elect a secretary, who thus becomes a member ex-officio. In 
addition to the several boards of management there is a visiting board of 
ladies, whose duty it is to visit and inspect all places where females are 
imprisoned. All these boards make annual reports to the general 
assembly, with the exception of the trustees of the Providence reform 
school, who report to the city council. 

The co unty jails. 

The county jails outside of Providence are inspected by the justices 
of the supreme court at the commencement of each term. The jails 
are reported to be at present in good condition and secure. The num¬ 
ber of commitments, except in Providence, is very small. During the 
past year there have been only 192 persous committed. On the 31st of 
December, 1872, there were in jail 9 prisoners in the whole State. In 
Providence county there have been 1,749 commitments during the 
year, 169 of whom were women; and on the 31st of December there 
were 113 prisoners, 104 males and 9 females, in jail; average number, 
99gL 3 6 . By the statute all prisoners punishable by fine of not less than 
$5, or a term of imprisonment of not less than thirty days, are to be 
sentenced to the Providence county jail. 

The state prison. 

In the year 1797 the general assembly ordered the erection of a state 
prison, in connection with a new jail for the county of Providence, but 
in the following year the order was rescinded, and it was not until 
1835 that measures were adopted looking to the project of building a 
prison for the State’s convicts. The general assembly, in January of 



PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF RHODE ISLAND. 


441 


that year, referred the matter to the freemen of the State, to be decided 
by a popular vote. In April the vote was taken, resulting in 4,433 
votes in favor of building tlie prison, and 502 against it. The general 
assembly, upon ascertaining the will of the people, and after examining 
the merits of the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems, gave the prefer¬ 
ence to the former, and directed that a prison should be built accord- 
ingly. The building was completed in 1838, and in November of that 
year was opened, with three convicts as the total number of its inmates. 
Before the end of the month two more were added. At the expiration 
ot the first year of the prison, September 30, 1839, the number had in¬ 
creased to ten. On the 30th of September, 1840, there were sixteen 
convicts in prison, fifteen males and one female. At this time the pop¬ 
ulation of the State was 108,830. 

Four years’ trial of the Pennsylvania system convinced the inspectors 
and the immediate officers of the prison that the mode of separate con¬ 
finement with labor was harmful in its effects. Workshops were erected 
in 1843. At a later period the necessity of a new and better constructed 
prison became evident, and in 1852 a new building, containing eighty- 
eight cells, was erected, at a cost of $17,632 37. This was constructed 
as an addition or wing to the former prison, which was thenceforward 
used as a jail for the county. The constantly increasing number of jail 
prisoners compelled a larger provision for their accommodation, and in 
1855-’56 another wing was added to the prison, containing seventy-two 
cells and two hospitals; a new wall was built and a new workshop 
erected, at a cost of $47,143 37. One-half of this wing was used for 
the imprisonment of female convicts. Ten years later the county jail 
was relieved of most of its female inmates, and at present a single 
corridor of cells, entirely separated by heavy flooring and partitions 
from the remainder of the building, suffices for the restraint of female 
prisoners. On the 31st of December, 1872, there were in the state 
prison two and in the jail nine females. In the state prison there were 
at the same date seventy-one convicts; in the jail one hundred and thir¬ 
teen prisoners. For the internal administration of the prison and jail there 
are required a warden, deputy warden, and eight assistant male officers, 
and a matron, chaplain, and physician. The w arden, chaplain, and physi¬ 
cian are appointed by the inspectors. The other officers are appointed by 
the warden, subject to the approval of the inspectors. In the internal 
administration of the prison a system of classification has been adopted 
by which the prisoners have been divided into five grades: 1. Excel¬ 
lent; 2. good; 3. tolerably good; 4. unsatisfactory ; 5. bad. In 1872 
the following results appeared : First grade, 33 ; second, 10 ; third, 10; 
fourth, 34; fifth, 4. The schedule is prepared monthly and submitted 
to the inspectors at every monthly meeting of the board. The inspect¬ 
ors, to whom the entire control of the state prison is committed, have 
full power and authority, according to the statute, to enlarge the con¬ 
finement of the convicts and regulate their labor and exercise within 
the limits of the prison yard or of any of the prison buildings. They 
hold monthly meetings, audit all the accounts of the warden, make con¬ 
tracts for the labor of the prisoners, by one of their number visit the 
prison at least twice every month for purposes of inspection or for hear¬ 
ing the complaints of the prisoners, and have, in general, the complete 
oversight of the institution. The prison is divided into six departments, 
of general management, of labor and finance, of religious and other in¬ 
struction, of sanitary condition, of repairs and of supplies. The first de¬ 
partment is under the charge of two inspectors, one of whom is the 
chairman of the board; the other departments are under the charge 


442 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1S73. 

each of one inspector. The service of the board is rendered without 
any remuneration of any kind, except exemption from jury and military 
service. The prison at the present time is self-supporting. For the 
year 1872 the profits of both prison and jail amounted to $1,518.90 ; in 
1871 the income above expenses was $3,018.46. The labor of the prison¬ 
ers, shoe-making, is performed under contract, at the rate of 70 cents 
per day for state prisoners, 35 cents for jail prisoners, 17-J cents for 
prisoners who work less than thirty days. The whole number of con¬ 
victs committed to the state prison since its opening, in 1838, is 692. 
The expense of maintenance per capita , for 1872, was $110.75. 

The Providence Reform School. 

In May, 1847, the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manu¬ 
facturers memorialized the city council of Providence for the establish¬ 
ment of a house of reformation. In 1850 an act was passed by the gen¬ 
eral assembly authorizing the city to establish a “ school for the con¬ 
finement, instruction, and reformation of juvenile offenders and of young 
persons of idle, vicious, or vagrant habits,” the government of which 
was to be vested, as already stated, in a board of seven trustees. The 
trustees are empowered to receive into the school thus established all 
such children, under the age of eighteen years, who shall be convicted, 
before any court sitting within the city limits, as vagrants or disorderly 
persons, or of criminal offenses, or of offenses against the city ordi¬ 
nances, and such children as shall be convicted of criminal offenses be¬ 
fore any court in the State, or of the United States sitting within the 
state limits. They may also admit any child above the age of five 
years, at the request of parents or guardian. Children thus sentenced 
or admitted shall be held under restraint for a term not longer than 
during their minority or less than two years, the trustees having the 
power of discharging such children as are considered reformed, before 
the expiration of their sentence, or of binding out the children as ap¬ 
prentices, or, in cases of incorrigibility, of remanding them to the county 
jail, house of correction, or state prison. They are, while inmates of 
the school, to be taught in virtue and morality, and in such branches of 
useful knowledge as shall be suited to their age aud capacity. They 
are also to be instructed in regular courses of labor. The expense of 
maintaining the school is divided between the State and the city, the 
former paying the actual cost of supporting the children who have been 
sentenced by the courts, the latter paying for buildings, grounds, sala¬ 
ries, instructors, and the like. The cost of maintaining, deducting the 
earnings of the children, is estimated at the rate of $110.87 for each in¬ 
mate ; without such deduction, $218.60. 

A large hotel in the south part of the city, overlooking a very beau¬ 
tiful prospect of Narragansett Bay and the adjacent shores, known to 
the traveling public of former days as the Tockwotton House, was pur¬ 
chased by the city of Providence, and the school was formally opened 
November 1,1850. In January, 1854, the Hon. W. B. Staples, an emi¬ 
nent jurist of Khode Island, delivered a charge to the grand jury, at the 
opening of his court, in which he speaks thus of the school: “ It was 
opposed in the beginning by some of the citizens of Providence as not 
being within the range of objects properly belonging to a municipal 
corporation. On the trustees and other officers it imposed duties aud 
responsibilities, every part of which to them was new and untried. 
They had gleaned some information from other similar institutions, but 
that knowledge was, of course, only theoretical. The buildings where 


REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS OF RHODE ISLAND. 443 


it is established were erected for very different objects, and of course 
are not so convenient or well adapted for its present use as one built 
expressly for such a school would be. Many are the disadvantages 
under which it has had to labor. Still, it has been more successful in 
its results than its friends anticipated, and promises to give effectual 
aid in diminishing the number of prisoners in our county jail and* state 
prison.” * * * * Its inmates, he goes on to say, within its 

walls “ are secluded from all the associations which tend further to cor¬ 
rupt them. There, habits of industry, sobriety, and sober reflection are 
substituted for idleness, profanity, intemperance, and folly. There, all 
the deficiencies of their early moral culture may be supplied, and they 
have the benefit of good example, wholesome instruction, the means of 
improvement in virtue and knowledge, and the opportunity of becom¬ 
ing intelligent, moral, and useful members of society.” Since the time 
at which this charge was delivered the school has been improved by 
the addition of new buildings, the extension of its grounds, and an en¬ 
largement of its means of instruction. 

Within the last three years an addition has been made to the north 
wing of the main building—for the accommodation of the boys belong¬ 
ing to the school—furnishing accommodations for thirty-six dormito¬ 
ries, each 4 feet C inches by 8 feet, neatly furnished and amply venti¬ 
lated j a large finely lighted school-room, 35 feet by 47 feet, and 12 feet 
high, furnished with desks for one hundred pupils, supplied with black¬ 
boards and all the necessary appliances for thorough instruction, and 
connecting with a large room—19 feet by 12 feet—for the library and 
class recitations; and a fine bath-room, with a tank 12 feet by 17 feet, 
and oh feet deep, with closets for clothes, &c. The building is of three 
stories—37 feet 0 inches by 62 feet 6 inches—with a slated French roof 
and a dry, large basement, under two-thirds, the other third forming a 
covered arcade for the protection of the boys from the weather while 
engaged in recreation in the yard. It is hoped that, before long, a sim¬ 
ilar building will be erected for the girls. It is very greatly needed, 
and has been earnestly recommended. 

The number of inmates from the opening of the school to November 
30,1872, is 1,616 boys and 433 girls. The average number of mouths in 
the institution of those discharged has been, for all committed, 16.9 for 
boys, 22.2 for girls. Inmates have been received from every town and 
city in the State, except New Shoreham, and from one or two places 
beyond the territorial limits of Ehode Island. Instruction is given in 
reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, sewing, and other domestic 
labors. Gardening and fruit-culture have also received considerable 
attention, and the labor performed in the workshop amounts to a sum 
not far from $20,000 annually. For the year 1872, the amount received 
from labor, $21,977.46. The"number of inmates committed during the 
year ending November 30, 1872, has been 103 boys and 10 girls; num¬ 
ber discharged, 107 boys and 24 girls. The number in the school No¬ 
vember 30, 1872, was 156 boys and 37 girls. The superintendent esti¬ 
mates that the system pursued is beneficial to the extent of reforming 
and saving to society about 75 per cent, of the boys and 50 per cent, of 
the girls. The institution is under the charge of a superintendent, an 
assistant superintendent, a matron, an assistant matron and nurse, 
physician, steward, two male and two female teachers, four male and 
five female overseers. Eeligious services are held every Sunday after¬ 
noon, conducted by members of the board of trustees, or by gentlemen 
invited by them for the purpose. A Sunday-school is held every Sun¬ 
day in the forenoon, 9J to 11. The trustees hold quarterly meetings in 


444 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Marcli, June, September, and December. A committee of the trustees 
meet twice each mouth for visitation and other necessary business. 
They perform their duties gratuitously. They declare, iu their last 
printed report, that “ the general condition of the institution is entirely 
satisfactory to the trustees, and its prospects of usefulness in the future 
highly encouraging.” The system of management, discipline, &c., is 
the “congregate.” The lady visitors are of the opinion that, for the 
girls at least, the family system would be preferable. 

The state farm. 

At the January session of the general assembly in the year 1867, a 
eommittee was appointed to “inquire into the expediency of erecting a 
state asylum for the insane.” At the January session in the year 1868, 
the committee reported favorably upon the subject, and a new committee 
was appointed for the purpose of selecting a suitable place for such an 
institution—it being understood that a tract of land containing not 
less than 200 acres should be purchased. In the view of this committee, 
a necessity existed for a new house of correction, as well as an asylum 
for the insane. In 1869, at the January session, a third committee was 
appointed, with power to buy a suitable farm for the two institutions 
and “for such other purposes as the general assembly may direct.” The 
committee was also instructed to report a “ plan for the organization 
and establishment of a house of correction and state pauper system.” 
A tract of land, containing 398 acres, finely situated, in the town of 
Cranston, was purchased for the sum of $27,500, and soon after the 1st 
of June, 1869, came into possession of the State. On the 28tli of May 
of the same year, an act was passed establishing a board of state char¬ 
ities and corrections. This board consists of six persons appointed for 
six years, two from the county of Providence, and one from each of the 
other counties in the State, with power to choose a secretary, who, by 
virtue of his office, becomes an associate member. The board was also 
directed to appoint a superintendent of state charities and corrections, 
to whom was to be committed the duty of overseeing the general busi¬ 
ness of the board, of examining paupers and lunatics, and of removing 
them to their proper “places of settlement.” The act contemplated the 
erection of a state workhouse, a house of correction, a state asylum 
for the incurable insane, and a state almshouse. The inmates of the 
state workhouse were to consist of persons who had abandoned, neg¬ 
lected, or refused to aid in the support of their families; idle persons, of 
doubtful reputation, and having no visible means of support; sturdy 
beggars, vagrants, prostitutes, common drunkards, night-walkers, lewd 
and lascivious persons, frequenters of places of ill-repute, cheats and dis¬ 
orderly persons—and these were to be sentenced for a term not less than 
six mouths nor more than three years. The board can require any 
steamship or railroad company to make returns of the names, sex, ages, 
and nativity of any class of passengers brought into Rhode Island, and 
the company is liable for the support of any pauper thus introduced into 
the State for the period of twelve months, or for his return to the place 
whence he was brought. The cities and towns in the State may send to 
the state almshouse all paupers not having a legal settlement within 
their respective limits. Any lunatic having no legal settlement in the 
State, but supported by any town or city, if incurably insane, may be 
sent to the state asylum, to be supported at the expense of the State. 
The incurably insane who have a legal settlement are to be sent to the 
asylum, to be supported by the town or city to which they respectively 


STATE FARM OF RHODE ISLAND. 


445 


belong 1 . Any inmate of the reform school who may be considered in¬ 
corrigible, or unlit to remain in said school, may be transferred to the 
state work-house. The board of state charities and corrections have 
the power ot discharging any of the inmates of the institutions upon the 
farm, and of binding them out for service with suitable and trustworthy 
persons. 

The board, immediately upon taking possession of the farm—increased 
by subsequent purchase to 417.7 acres—began the erection of buildings 
suitable lor the reception of the expected inmates. Two workhouses 
and two buildings for the insane were erected during the year 1869; an 
additional building, for the accommodation of the violent insane, and a 
chapel were erected in 1870. In 1871 measures were adopted for build¬ 
ing a strong workhouse, which could also be used for a house of cor¬ 
rection, which, it is expected, will soon be completed and occupied. It 
is constructed of stone, and will provide for the accommodation of “ two 
hundred male and one hundred female inmates, properly graded, with 
complete separation of the sexes. 77 Religious services have been held 
from time to time, conducted by different gentlemen and ladies, and a 
Sunday-school was in successful operation during the years 1870 and 
1871. A fire at the farm in April, 1872, destroyed the chapel and inter¬ 
rupted both the school and Sunday services. 

The amount expended for all purposes at the farm from Juue 1, 1869, 
to January 1, 1873, has been $371,441.15. The property is valued at 
$212,227.07. It is believed that the amount has really been more than 
saved to the State by the removal of paupers not belonging to the State 
to their proper places of settlement and abode. The whole number of 
inmates received at the state workhouse from the beginning to January 
1, 1873, is 1,271, of whom 359 were females and 912 were males; of these 
695 were of foreign parentage. The whole number of insane persons 
received at the farm is 239; the number remaining January 1,1873, was 
153—70 males, 83 females. The board of state charities is organized 
with a chairman and secretary and five standing committees: 1, on the 
farm ; 2, on supplies ; 3, on buildings and repairs; 4, on labor and dis¬ 
cipline; 5, on finance and audit of accounts. The executive officers are 
a superintendent of state charities and corrections, a superintendent 
of the state farm, a deputy superintendent of the workhouse, a deputy 
superintendent of the insane asylum, and a physician. Under-officers, 
matrons, &c., are appointed according to the needs of the institution. 
The board serve gratuitously, except that their necessary expenses for 
traveling and attendance upon their meetings are paid by the State. 

The objects proposed by the establishment of the state farm were, 
1. The removal of paupers, not domiciled in the State, to the places where 
they really belonged. 2. An improvement in the care of paupers and 
the insane poor, which was greatly needed in Rhode Island. 3. The re¬ 
formation of vagrants, drunkards, abandoned women, and the like. 
The first two of these objects have been fully attained. In the years 
1870 and 1871, 465, in 1872, 125 paupers were removed from the State. 
The insane department is regarded with peculiar satisfaction. “The 
unfortunate persons in that department, 77 says the secretary of the board, 
“ are made comfortable and as happy as is possible for them to be. It 
is certain that the condition of those brought from town poor-houses is 
greatly improved, and even those brought from our best hospitals pro¬ 
fess to be pleased with the change. 77 In regard to the third object pro¬ 
posed, results have not been so satisfactory as was anticipated. It was 
hoped that absence from temptation, the benefit of pure air and simple 
food, regular habits, out-of-door work, surrounded by scenes of natural 


446 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873, 


beauty, and wise and careful instruction and oversight, would materi¬ 
ally aid in reclaiming those unfortunate persons who are overcome by 
appetite and lust. Sentences were made, in a measure, indeterminate, 
the board having power to discharge those who are considered as having 
been benefited by their restraint. It is estimated that but very few 
persons have thus far been reclaimed from dissipation and vice. The 
board believe that a larger number than ever before has been benefited 
during the last year. The secretary, in his report for 1871, regards the 
moral and reformatory agencies as a failure. He attributes the poor 
results in this direction to three causes: 1. u The depravity of the human 
heart when educated in a course of dissipation.” 2. “ The situation and 
circumstances of the workhouse itself, the crowded halls and dormito¬ 
ries rendering all privacy impossible.” The building used as a work- 
house is evidently unfit for the purposes of its erection. 3. The short¬ 
ness of the time of sentence. Half a year, which is frequently the term 
of sentence, is too brief for weaning these men and women from the 
habits of nearly a lifetime. He suggests as remedies, 1. Longer sen¬ 
tences. 2. A complete change in the internal arrangement of the work- 
house, which he hopes will be effected in the new building. 3. Greater 
efforts to awaken the minds of the inmates, and to give them proper in¬ 
struction in evening and other schools, and by familiar lectures and ad¬ 
dresses and religious exercises on Sundays. The board, however, feel 
assured that better and more encouraging results have appeared within 
the past year, and they look forward hopefully to the future. Still it 
must be borne in mind that our state farm is of very recent establish¬ 
ment, and is yet to be regarded somewhat in the light of an experiment. 
The buildings were hastily erected, and were at once crowded with oc¬ 
cupants. An imperfect system of organization prevailed, and affairs 
became somewhat chaotic. Such is always the case with a new enterprise 
which is hurriedly undertaken, for the supply of an immediate and 
pressing need. As more suitable buildings shall be erected and a more 
thorough system of government come into operation, there can be no 
doubt of beneficial results. A judicious and persevering effort to treat 
the whole subject of reformatory and punitive discipline with practical 
sagacity, with scientific method, and a humane spirit, cannot fail of 
success. 


Board of female visitors. 

The board of female visitors to institutions where women are impris¬ 
oned was constituted in the year 1870. It consists of seven ladies, ap¬ 
pointed annually by the governor. These ladies visit the different penal 
and reformatory institutions in the State, and are organized with a presi¬ 
dent, secretary, and three committees: 1. To visit the state prison. 2. 
To visit the Providence reform school. 3. To visit the state farm. 
Their duty is to visit and inspect these places, converse with the women 
and girls there under restraint, and offer such suggestions as they 
think are necessary in the cases which come to their knowledge. It is 
believed that their work lias been efficient and valuable, and it is hoped 
that ere long separate prisons and reformatories for women will be es¬ 
tablished, to be wholly under the control of persons of their own sex. 


Commutation. 

In order to complete the view here given of our treatment of the 
criminal class under sentence, I would say, in addition, that a system 


STATE PENITENTIARY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 


447 


of commutation prevails in the state prison, allowing to convicts for 
good behavior one day in each month for every year of sentence be¬ 
low five years ; and that it is in contemplation to allow convicts a cer¬ 
tain portion of their earnings. Capital punishment was abolished in 
Rhode Island in January, 1852, and imprisonment for life substituted for 
the penalty of what had been known as capital crimes. In December, 
1872, death by hanging was declared to be the penalty for murder com¬ 
mitted while in prison by a person under life-sentence. 

Discharged prisoners. 

A society for the aid of discharged prisoners was organized in Prov¬ 
idence, in March, 1872. Its officers are a president, vice-president, 
secretary, and treasurer, and an executive committee, composed of one 
person from each of the boards which have been mentioned. The 
society, having had but a brief existence and a small membership as 
yet, has not been able to accomplish much more than a preparatory 
work. But few applications have been made for aid, as the state prison 
authorities have an arrangement with the contractors at the prison to 
furnish employment in their outside shops to such discharged convicts 
as have proved themselves good workmen, and have earned a certificate 
of good behavior. As the means of this society increase, it is expected 
that more complete study of the subject of prison discipline will be 
entered upon, with a view r to ascertain the best methods for working 
out the desirable result of the reformation of the criminal. The 
society has the sympathy of the best members of our community, and 
a future of prosperity and usefulness is confidently anticipated. 

Main features of Rhode Island prison system. 

The main features of the Rhode Island system of prison discipline 
are: 1. The authority given to the several boards of trustees and in¬ 
spectors to direct and control the management of the several institutions 
without interference from any quarter, to appoint the officers, to manage 
the finances, to arrange for the labor and instruction of the inmates, 
and, in some instances, to discharge the prisoners. 2. The entirely 
gratuitous services of such boards of direction. 3. The freedom from 
political bias in making the appointments. 4. The existence of a board 
of female visitors. 5. The abolition of the death penalty, except in 
cases of murder committed in prisou by a prisoner under life-sentence, 
fi. A system of commutation. 7. A partial system of classification of 
prisoners. 


21. South Carolina. 


By General J. C. Stolbrand, superintendent of the state penitentiarr . 

Liberally as the people of the State have heretofore contributed to 
build up and maintain charitable institutions for lunatics, orphans, 
deaf-mutes, and other classes of unfortunates, there were in the State, 
previous to the termination of the late war, no penal or reformatory 
institutions of any kind. 

The district county jails were then, even more than uow, of the rudest 
and most primitive kind. 



448 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


This state of things was probably owing to the severity of the then 
criminal laws, (now much modified and milder,) under which were in¬ 
dicted capital punishment upon such criminals as now, in almost every 
State of the Union, receive sentences of from two to ten years imprison¬ 
ment with hard labor. 

In 186G Governor James L. Orr, with admirable tact and foresight, 
succeeded in securing from an unwilling legislature a small sum of 
money for the purpose of constructing, temporarily, a place of safety 
for such offenders as might prove, under the new order of things (eman¬ 
cipation having become of effect) too dangerous to the community, and 
upon whom the death penalty, according to then existing statute, seemed 
too severe. 

From this action on the part of Governor Orr originated what is now 
known as the South Carolina penitentiary. 

In 1868, after the reconstructed government of the State had come into 
operation, under the new constitution, it was decreed by the legislature 
that the penitentiary at Columbia should be the general penitentiary 
and prison of the State, for the reformation as well as the punishment 
of all offenders. Ground was broken for the institution, November 17, 
1866, but no convicts were received until April 18, 1867. Since then 
the institution, for want of means, has advanced but slowly in the way of 
erecting and completing the necessary buildings. 

Since the last-named date no hired labor (except foremen in the different 
branches) has been employed. The quarrying and cutting of the granite 
for the buildings, the weaving of the cloth and making it up into gar¬ 
ments, the cooking, washing, shoemakiug, &c., have all been done by 
the convicts. 

The plan of the prison provides for the erection of five hundred cells, 
divided into two wings, which are to be united by a central building 
for the administration. There are now three hundred and forty cells 
mostly ready for occupancy under a temporary roof, which serves for 
shelter until the inclosing wall shall have been completed and perma¬ 
nently roofed. 

A school has been organized, under a competent teacher, which 
promises good results. Religious service is regularly maintained on 
the Sabbath, and a Sunday-school has been in operation for about two 
years. 

The first official report of the institution was dated January 1, 1&68, 
and states that the inmates then numbered 187 ; in 1869 the" number 
was 222 5 in 1870, 317; in 1871, 309 ; and in 1872, 300. The number of 
whites has not varied materially from 10 per cent, of the whole number. 
Considering that this is the only penal institution in a State of 720,000 
inhabitants, it is believed that the number of criminals compares not 
unfavorably with other States. 

Theft is the besetting sin in this commonwealth. More than five-sev¬ 
enths of our criminals have become such under that designation. About 
one-seventh have committed offenses against the person by violence, 
while the.remaining seventh comprises offenders of all grades and de¬ 
scriptions. 

It is to be hoped that a proposition now beforeour legislature to estab¬ 
lish a reform school for boys may resultin the consummation of so need¬ 
ful and desirable an end. 

Any one giving even a casual glance at our social condition and de¬ 
velopment will be struck with the illiteracy and ignorance of a great 
majority of the people. That this is owing to our former system ot 
slavery is not doubted. The only remedy lies in the gradual extension 


PRISONS OF TENNESSEE AND TEXAS. 449 

of the common school, whose widening and beneficent influence is, even 
at this early period, felt in every part of the State. 


22. Tennessee. 


By W. M. Wright, M. D., superintendent of prisons. 


In the absence of my annual report, made last week to the legislature, 
but not yet published, I beg leave to submit the following brief state¬ 
ment of facts with regard to the state prison of Tennessee: There 
are now in the penitentiary at Nashville, and its branches throughout 
the State, 744 convicts. Of this number about 400 are colored ; 35 are 
females, only one of whom is white. In December, 1871, the legis¬ 
lature leased the state-prison, including its branches, to a private com¬ 
pany, at $33,000 a year for five years, the lessees paying all expenses. 
By a stipulation in the contract the State retained entire control of the 
treatment of the convicts. For four years preceding the lease, the 
prisons cost the State $114,000 annually. The legislature, to get rid of 
this heavy burden, and at the same time do exact justice to the crim¬ 
inals, according to the enlightened philanthropy of the age, entered into 
the above-mentioned contract, with the necessary restraining provisions 
to guard the moral interests of the convicts. The legislature believed, 
and their wisdom has been justified, that they could lease out the prisons 
and at the same time introduce and carry into effective operation all the 
reformatory measures consistent with the good government of penal 
institutions and the well-being of society. The measures adopted for 
the reformation of criminals are the commutation or good-time law, the 
regular employment of chaplains, who have service every Sunday morn¬ 
ing and Sabbath-school in the evening, the distribution of good books, 
periodicals, &c. I can see very little difference in the means used in 
Tennessee for the reformation of criminals and those employed in other 
States whose reports have been read to this body. I only consented to 
make these few remarks that the congress might know that Tennessee 
is not an idle or indifferent spectator of the grand reformatory revolu¬ 
tion in the management of criminals, which is engaging the best minds 
of our country and enlisting the active sympathy and intelligent study 
of every civilized country throughout the world. The plan adopted in 
Tennessee works well and is satisfactory. 


23. Texas. 

By Rev. Benjamin A. Rogers, commissioner to the International Penitentiary Congress of 
London, and president of the prison reform association of Texas. 

The State of Texas has an area of 338,000 square miles, with 130 or¬ 
ganized counties, and a population of nearly 900,000 souls; of which a 
fraction over two-fifths are colored. Iu territorial extent it is the largest 
State in the American Union, having also the greatest diversity of cli¬ 
mate, soil, and productions. With its vast sea-coast, its navigable riv¬ 
ers, its rapidly extending railroads, and its swelling tide of immigration, 
it may perhaps be allowed to count itself among the most prosperous 
of States j and it is utterly without excuse if it fails to enter, with vig¬ 
orous step, into every reform that tends to the safety, progress, and 
H. Ex. 185-29 




450 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


happiness of a people. But notwithstanding the flood of light that the 
last fifty years have thrown upon the subject under consideration in 
this report, Texas is to- day wholly without public reformatory institu¬ 
tions (usually so denominated) of any kind. Its barrenness in this re¬ 
gard is not without, at least, one advantage: its field of operations is 
an open one; where nothing exists, there are no errors to be corrected, 
no strong prejudices to overcome; and much may be hoped from time 
and effort. 

The Slate has but one penitentiary, or state prison, which is located 
at Huntsville. Nearly every county has its jail. As to the number, 
sex, and ages of prisoners, whether in the penitentiary or jails, I cannot 
speak with any degree of accuracy, as 1 have been unable to obtain 
answers to my questions addressed to the penitentiary contractors, 
though strongly seconded in my efforts by the governor of the State. 
I suppose the penitentiary convicts number from 600 to 800 persons, 
and the inmates of the jails as many more. 

There is no central authority charged with the administration of the 
prison system of the State. Each county has charge of its own jail 
affairs. The consequence is, that the jails are mere filthy pens, or hor¬ 
rible dungeons, where, in many instances, all sorts of criminals, all 
ages, and both sexes, are herded together, like cattle; often with little 
air, little light, and no cleanliness. The county courts are responsible. 

The penitentiary being in the hands of contractors, the administration 
of its discipline is very largely in their hands also. The discipline is 
simply deterrent; or at least it is so intended. The agencies adopted 
are labor, the dungeon, and the stocks—the last too liberally used. 

There is no provision of law for instruction of the convicts, except in 
labor; and what is not provided for by law is not likely to be furnished 
by contractors, whose business it is to make all that can be made out 
of the convicts’ labor, regardless of higher ends. 

In the penitentiary itself, various kinds of manufacturing are carried 
on. But much convict work is performed outside, as the contractors 
are allowed to put the convicts upon the railroads of the State, where 
they work under an armed guard. This, while it sometimes ameliorates 
the immediate condition of the prisoner, is really a pernicious system. 
It encourages attempts to escape—sometimes resulting in success, and 
thus cheating society of its security; sometimes issuing in capture and 
punishment, thus subjecting prisoners to unnecessary suffering; and 
sometimes leading to the shooting down of the convict, a waste of life 
without necessity, and so without right. 

Larceny, burglary, and injuries to the person, particularly the first, 
are the most common forms of crime; ignorance, intemperance, idleness, 
poverty, and want of early training, are the predominant causes. 

Two years ago Governor Davis, in his annual message to the legisla¬ 
ture, urged a thorough reform of the prison system of the State, but no 
legislative action was obtained. Within a few weeks past great public 
interest has been aroused by a thorough exposure, in a public lecture, 
delivered at the State capital, of the enormities of the existing systems, 
both jail and penitentiary, from which has resulted the formation of a 
u prison reform association of the State of Texas,” one of the avowed 
and leading purposes of which is a promoting such legislation as shall 
reform the present prison system and discipline of the State.” 

The membership of this association embraces some of the best and most 
influential men of all parties in the State, among whom are its highest 
officials, the governor, the secretary of state, the State treasurer, the 
attorney-general, the comptroller, and the judges of the supreme court; 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF VERMONT. 


451 


also, some of the most influential members of the bar from different 
parts of the State. The newspapers of the State, without regard to 
party, are also earnest in the advocacy of reform, and much of hope 
lies in the future of this association. 

This association has already prepared and proposed to the legislature 
the passage of three separate bills. One of these bills provides for a 
complete re-organization of the county-jail system of the State ; another 
provides for the erection of a new penitentiary, to be conducted sub¬ 
stantially on the Crofton system; and the third proposes for each county 
in the State a a county farm, 7 ’ with poor-house, house of correction, and 
reform school. All the above bills were referred to committees. Fa¬ 
vorable action is hoped upon some of them at once, and upon all in time. 
The urgent need of reform in all these points may be inferred from the 
statements made in this report, and also from those contained in the 
following extracts from a communication made to the legislature by the 
writer of the report, and which is hereto appended as a part of his state¬ 
ment : 

It is believed that no other civilized State upon the earth has so terrible a jail sys¬ 
tem as ours. The hundred jails in this State are to-day a hundred dens of suffering, 
crime, and infamy; a hundred schools of poverty, vice, and shame ; a hundred plague- 
spots upon the body politic, and a hundred sources of disgrace to morality, to religion, 
to the State. And it were well if this were all. But, with nearly a thousand peniten¬ 
tiary convicts, we have to-day accommodations for only two hundred and eighty-eight; 
and, again, with thousands of suffering paupers there is not a poor-house in the State. 
Again, with thousands of children, orphans, and outcasts falling into crime, we have 
not one single house of correction or reform. 

Why is this? It is a well-established law of political economy that humanity itself 
is of the greatest value to a State, and that a careful regard for it is a State’s first duty. 

What is being done for humanity here ? Where does Texas look for her future pros¬ 
perity ? Is she willing to risk the experiment of letting poverty and suffering, the 
very parents of degradation, go on unnoticed and unchecked? 

All these things are in your hands, gentlemen, and may not the good citizens of the 
State hope that, among the four hundred bills before you, the two or three looking to 
the suppression of suff ering and crime may be deemed worthy of notice ? 


24. Vermont. 


Bij Rev. Franklin Butler, chaplain of the state prison. 

Vermont is an inland, agricultural State, containing an area of only 
9,056J square miles, or 5,795,960 acres, and having a population of 
330,551 in 1870. The Green Mountains extend through the entire length 
of the State, dividing it from north to south into two nearly equal por¬ 
tions. It has only two incorporated cities, and but few towns in which 
the number of inhabitants exceeds five thousand or even two thousand 
souls. It is eminently a rural commonwealth, in which there are no 
great centers of influence of a social, moral, or political nature. 

Vermont has three colleges and an academical and common-school 
system, of which, although perfection is not claimed, her sons are never 
ashamed to make mention. 

In Christian churches she abounds, and in her men and women 
trained up in her mountain homes, she, if any State, may glory. But, 
despite these advantages, here, as elsewhere, vice and crime exist; and 
the demand for earnest attention to the prevention and cure of the same 
is most imperative and urgent upon Christian patriots and philanthro¬ 
pists. 

In attention to this latter point, Vermont has not much whereof to 



452 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


boast; and, indeed, it may as well be plainly confessed that, herein, 
she is considerably in the rear of some of her younger sisters. 

The penal and reformatory institutions of the State are : I. The state 
prison; II. The county jails; III. The State reform school. To these 
may be added, as institutions bearing directly upon the prevention of 
crime: IV. The home for destitute children, at Burlington V. Other 
preventive institutions. 


I .—The state prison. 

This is situated at Windsor, and is the first and only one ever built 
in Vermont. It was completed and occupied in 1809, eighteen years 
after the admission of the State to the Union. Previous to that time, 
such temporary expedients for the public safety and the punishment of 
offenders were adopted as were deemed practicable for the unsettled 
civil and political condition of the people. The building, 84 feet long 
by 36 feet wide, three stories high, was constructed of granite, the out¬ 
side walls being 3 feet thick, and the partitions of apartments into which 
it was divided being 18 inches in thickness. The rooms were made for 
the occupation of several convicts at a time; and they were lighted, in 
the first and second stories, only by a small aperture in each for the ad¬ 
mission of light and air. This building was considered large enough 
for 170 inmates. Adjoining it, a building 54 by 24 feet, and four stories 
high, of stone and brick, was erected for the use of the keepers and 
guards. Walls of hammered stone and brick, 20 feet high and 4 feet 
thick at the base, inclosing a yard 16 by 12 rods square, were also 
raised. Within the yard was a workshop, 100 by 24 feet, and three 
stories high. 

In 1832 a new cell building was constructed, containing 136 cells, 
each designed for one prisoner. It has, however,been since re-arranged, 
and the cells so enlarged as to reduce the number to 104. This building 
is appropriated to the men, while the upper part of the old structure is 
used for the confinement of women. 

From 1809 to 1872, 2,101 persons have been committed to this prison, 
averaging a little more than 33 per year, the commitments of 1809 be¬ 
ing 24, and those of 1872 being 32, and the population of the State be¬ 
ing respectively 217,895 and 330,551. The highest average term of 
sentences, less than life, during this period is six and two-third years, 
in 1809, and the lowest is two years, in 1867, while the general average 
is a little over three years. Nineteen have been sentenced for life. The 
pardons number 724, the greatest number having been in 1821, when 
it equaled the number of commitments, viz, 27. The least number was 
zero, for neither in 1809 nor in 1842 were any pardons granted. The 
escapes, in the sixty-three years, amount to 26, being less than one in 
two years. The death rate on the whole number has been a little more 
than one-third of one per cent.; on the average number about one 
and one third per cent. 

The practice of industrial labor has always been regarded as of pri¬ 
mary importance, as well to the interests of the inmates themselves as 
to those of the State. Various kinds of labor have been pursued, both 
on contract and under the management of the officers. At present the 
work is exclusively ladies’ gaiters, on contract, at 70 cents per day, 
which yielded to the State, in 1872, an excess of income above expend¬ 
itures, amounting to $3,654.31, and there is a fair prospect that the ex¬ 
cess will exceed that amount for some time to come. 

The discipline is in the hands of the warden, who administers it with 


REFORM SCHOOL OF VERMONT. 


453 


mingled kindness, firmness, and justice. Solitary confinement in a 
darkened cell generally suffices for correction, although the block and 
chain are in rare cases found necessary. As an inducement to good 
behavior, a commutation law has been enacted by the legislature, by 
which an abatement from the sentence for good conduct may be made, 
by the governor, on recommendation of the superintendent. This law 
has had a most benign effect upon the inmates. 

Secular instruction to the inmates is not required by law. More or 
less, however, according to the circumstances, is given in some form, 
by the chaplain or other officers. A library of nearly 500 volumes is 
provided, and an annual appropriation is made for its maintenance 
and increase. To this, all who can read have access. 

Religious instruction is provided for in the chaplaincy, the duties of 
which are those usually appertaining to the office of the minister of the 
gospel in preaching the word, visiting the sick, instructing, counseling, 
encouraging, and helping, with the truths of religion, the erring and 
fallen, to self-respect and self-conquest. He holds regular religious 
services every Sabbath, and performs such other labors as the varying 
circumstances require. Music being regarded an important aid to 
reformation, its use in worship and its practice for that end are en¬ 
couraged in all who have any aptitude for it. 

No provision is made, either by the State or by organized private 
benevolence, for aiding convicts to employment and usefulness on their 
discharge. The superintendent, in accordance with established custom, 
provides a decent suit of clothes for them, and gives them a small sum 
of money to help them to leave the place, but nothing more is usually 
done in the name of the State. Individuals, in a quiet way, often help 
them to employment, or afford other aid. 

II .—The county jails. 

There are fourteen counties in Vermont, with a jail in each. They 
generally consist of one or two large rooms and a few cells, designed for 
transient safe keeping of persons arrested, and for the punishment of 
those convicted of minor offenses, and sentenced to a few days or a few 
months of imprisonment. 

In some of the jails religious meetings on the Sabbath are regularly 
held by Young Men’s Christian Associations or other organizations, but 
this is by no means the case in all. 

Some "effort has been made to induce the legislature to make careful 
inquest into the condition and administration of the jail system, or 
rather want of system; but, as yet, no practical results have appeared. 
They are still mere tarrying places for the guilty or the innocent, as the 
case may be, in which a brief confinement often proves, through asso¬ 
ciation with hardened criminals, the introduction to life-long crime. 
Governors have called attention to the subject, editors have discussed 
it, and intelligent citizens have expressed their opinions; but no steps 
have yet been taken toward improvement. 

III .—The State reform school. 

In 1865 an act was passed, establishing a State reform school. It 
was organized on the family system, but has been changed to the con¬ 
gregate. None are admitted who have passed the age of sixteen. Both 
sexes were at first received; but that plan was not found to work well, 


454 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1673. 


and at present only boys are received. Originally the law allowed sen¬ 
tences ranging from six months to u during minority.” Experience dem¬ 
onstrated the inexpediency of this provision, and now the latter is the 
only sentence; but the authorities have power to discharge conditionally 
whenever, in their judgment, it may be wise to do so. It is essentially 
a preventive institution, being designed rather for vicious and neglected 
children than for those actually criminal. Although, from the shortness 
of the time during which it has been in operation, large results have not 
yet appeared, enough has been accomplished to justify the outlay of 
labor and money expended, and to give promise of a rich harvest in the 
coming years. 


IY .—The home for destitute children. 

The home for destitute children, at Burlington, was founded in 1865, 
mainly through the efforts of Miss Lucia T. Wheeler, daughter of the 
late President Wheeler, of the Vermont University. During the first 
six months twelve children were received. It was opened in a private 
house; but as the number of applicants soon exceeded the means of 
accommodation the marine hospital building was purchased, in I860, 
and devoted to the uses of the institution. A permanent fund of $50,000 
for the home is nearly completed. Originally the institution was de¬ 
signed chiefly for destitute children of Burlington, but it is now open 
to those of all parts of the State. It has been in successful operation 
for seven years, under the efficient management of an association of 
benevolent ladies. During this period, it has received 170 children; of 
whom 79 have been provided with homes in private families, chiefly in 
this State. Some of them have been legally adopted, and others bound 
out until eighteen years of age. 

The working force of the “ Home” is composed of a matron, a teacher, 
a seamstress, and a cook. The school is regarded as equal to any public 
school of like grade. During the year 1872, twenty-eight have been 
received; nineteen have been provided with homes; and several, having 
reached their majority, have been discharged. The present number in 
the home is thirty-five. The value of this institution, as a preventive 
of evil and an agent for good, can scarcely be computed, and its friends 
may well rejoice in the success of their noble work. 

V .—Other preventive institutions. 

There are one or two other institutions or schools in the State forffhe 
young, similar in nature and object to the home at Burlington, originated 
and sustained by Roman Catholics; but, having no definite information 
concerning them, I am unable to do more than state the mere fact of 
their existence. 


Conclusion. 

Such is an imperfect sketch of the penal and reformatory institutions 
in this State. The facts are submitted in the belief that if, in some 
things, Vermont falls in the rear of some States in the great enterprise 
of true prison reform, it is not by reason of the lack either of eyes to 
perceive her deficiencies, or of head to find the remedy, or of heart to 
press the application. Vermont may be in the rear, but she is not 
asleep. 


REFORM SCHOOL OF WISCONSIN. 


455 


25. Wisconsin. 


By Samuel D. Hastings, secretary state board of charities and reform. 

The State of Wisconsin contains a population, according 1 to the United 
States census of 1870, of 1,051,970, of which number 090,471 were native 
and 304,499 foreign-born. 

The State is divided into fifty-eight counties, forty-nine of which have 
jails, in which persons awaiting trial charged with crime and those con¬ 
victed of minor offenses are confined. 

In most of the counties the jails are small and insecure, deficient in 
ventilation, with no facilities for bathing, with no arrangements for a 
proper classification of their inmates by which the young lad, confined 
for some petty misdemeanor—his first offense—can be separated from 
the old and hardened offender, and are so managed that the prisoners 
are compelled to pass their time with no employment other than to cor¬ 
rupt each other and to devise plans for future depredations upon society, 
and with nothing done with a view to the reformation or the intellectual 
or moral improvement of the prisoners. Within the past few years a 
few good buildings have been erected, free from some of the defects al¬ 
luded to above. The buildings have been made comparatively secure; 
good ventilation has been attained; in one or two cases bathing facili¬ 
ties have been provided, and better arrangements for classification have 
been made; but, after all, glaring defects still remain. 

The aggregate number confined in the forty-nine jails of the State 
during the year 1870 was 1,502; the aggregate number in 1871 was 
1,456; and the number in the jails on the 1st day of August, 1872, 166. 
The time of confinement varies from a single day to a year or more. 

Of the number in the jails on the 1st day of August, 1872, 60 were 
insane, confined there for the lack of a better and more appropriate 
place in which to put them. A second state hospital for the insane is 
now nearly completed, and, when opened, the insane will all be removed 
from the jails. 

The most important reformatory institution in the State is the Indus¬ 
trial School for Boys. The following interesting accouut of this insti¬ 
tution has been kindly prepared by Mr. A. D. Hendrickson, the super¬ 
intendent : 

This institution was opened at Waukesha in July, 1860. In his opening address Mr. 
Cogswell appropriately said : “ Wisconsin inaugurates to-day the noblest of her insti¬ 
tutions—peual, reformatory, educational, or charitable.” This institution was first 
known as the house of refuge, but the legislature changed its name to reform school, 
and still later, in 1871, to Wisconsin industrial school for boys. Girls w ere originally 
admitted. Recently an act has been passed to exclude them. 

The number of boys, from the commencement to January 1, 1873, covering a period 
of twelve and one-half years, is 832 ; total number of inmates of both sexes, 905. 

The control of the institution is in the hands of a board of five managers, appointed 
by the governor for a term of three years. The board elects the superintendent and 
matron, who hold their office at its pleasure. The superintendent names all the assist¬ 
ants, subject to the approval of the board. 

Boys are committed to the school between the ages of eight and sixteen years, as 
vagrants, or on conviction of any criminal offense, or for incorrigible or vicious con- 

duct. . 

The managers have power to return any inmate to the care of his parents or guard¬ 
ian, or provide a home elsewhere, whenever in their judgment such disposition would 
be most for his future benefit; but unless he has reached lus majority, his discharge 
is conditional, and, in case of misconduct, he is returned to the institution, buch re¬ 
turns will not average more than 5 to 7 per cent. This watchful supervision of the 
boys after leaving the school is of very great value. It is a kind of parental oversight, 
which operates as a constant restraint. 

The average stay in the school is between two and three years. While a tew are 


456 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


discharged within three or four months, some remain six or seven years. The latter 
are generally those who have no homes outside, and, as a rule, they are the best fruits 
of our work. 

The total current expenses of the school for 1872 were $36,588.70. Of this sum the 
earnings of the boys amounted to $6,351.06, two-thirds of which were the product ol 
a farm of 233 acres, and one-third was the result of work in the shops. 

This institution was first organized on the congregate system, and so continued until 
the main building was destroyed by fire, January 10,1866. The institution was rebuilt 
on the family plan the same year. We have now a main building, containing school¬ 
room and residence of superintendent, and six family buildings. Each of these latter 
is designed to accommodate thirty-six boys, but want of room sometimes compels us 
to crowd forty or more iuto them. There are two stories above the basement. Each is 
provided with a boys’ sitting-room, bath-room, aud storage-room on basement floor ; 
dining-room, library-room, and officers’ sitting-room on first floor; and dormitory, 
dressing-room, and officers’ lodging-room on second floor. 

We have now been working uuder the family system for more than five years, and 
there is no wish to return to the congregate plan. Then the boys were locked in sepa¬ 
rate cells at night, confined within close yards by day, and strictly guarded at all times. 
Now each family lodges in a common dormitory, which is -well lighted and well ven¬ 
tilated, with no more bolts and bars than are needed in common dwellings. Our 
grounds and surroundings are open, pleasant, aud homelike. 

From eight to nine hours of each day are devoted to active employment, about equally 
divided between labor aud school. Onr employments are farming, gardening, shoe-mak¬ 
ing, tailoring, broom-making, willow-ware making, cane-seating, knitting, and domestic 
work. A principal aud four assistant teachers are employed in giving scholastic instruc¬ 
tion to the boys. The common English branches are taught; also history, physiology, 
and occasionally other branches of natural science and mathematics. Religious instruc¬ 
tion is regularly imparted, but without denominational bias. No regular chaplain is 
provided. Ministers of different denominations officiate. In the absence of such, the 
superintendent conducts the religious services. Resides public worship on the Sab¬ 
bath, a Sunday-school is regularly maintained. All the inmates assemble daily in the 
chapel for public prayer. A library of 800 to 900 volumes, and a generous supply of 
magazines and papers, adapted to the ages and capacities of our boys, constitute the 
reading matter provided. 

Vocal music is cultivated with very satisfactory results. For the past four years we 
have maintained a brass band, which has been a source of much gratification, and is 
found useful as well as ornamental. 

The most serious difficulty which this reform work has to contend with is the lack 
of the whole-souled earnest men and women to take the position of house-fathers and 
mothers, to educate and train up these young wayward sons of the west in the way 
in which they should go. 

The State is doing its part in this noble work, but there is a part that the State, 
unaided by individual effort, cannot do. Here is w r ork for the Christian and the 
philanthropist. The missionary may here find a field of labor without crossing the 
seas ; a field of labor that will prove remunerative to both the teacher and the taught. 
Here he can snatch a fellow-being from the brink of crime and infamy, and send him 
out into society a good man, an honest citizen. He may save a soul from death, and 
hide a multitude of sins. 

The following report on the state prison has been kindly furnished 
by the Hon. George F. Wheeler, state prison commissioner: 

The Wisconsin State prison, at Waupun, was opened to receive convicts in the spring 
of 1852. The whole number imprisoned here since the opening has been 1,718. The 
average number at present is something less than 200. 

The administration of the prison is in the hands of a commissioner, who is elected 
by popular suffrage biennially. He appoints all subordinate officers, and has full con¬ 
trol of the business and discipline of the institution. 

The conduct of the prisoners is, with few exceptions, good. It is the aim to maintain 
the discipline by kind measures rather than by harshness, and a resort to the severest 
punishment (confinement in a dark cell) is rarely necessary. A strong incentive to 
good conduct is the shortening of the term of service as a reward to good behavior. 

The governor has the power of pardon, but in order to its exercise he must have a 
certificate from the prison commissioner stating that the conduct of the applicant has 
been good during confinement; and, in case the convict has been sentenced for mur¬ 
der, he must also have the recommendation of the judge who tried the case. 

A school is maintained by the chaplain of the prison, in which from one-fourth to 
one-third of the convicts receive instruction on Sunday afternoon in the common- 
school branches. Although a large proportion of the prisoners are recorded on entrance 
as able to read and write, yet their knowledge of even these rudimentary branches is 
very slight, and the school has wonderfully improved very many of them. In addi- 


PENAL INSTITUTIONS OF WISCONSIN. 457 

tion to the school, there is, as a means of instruction and amusement, a library oi about 
five hundred volumes. 

The convicts are employed, under the management of the administration, in several 
kinds of mechanical work. They cut stone, manufacture cabinet-work, and make 
chairs. For this last work, which is carried on to even a large extent, the prison has very 
complete shops and machinery. Shoemaking and tailoring are also carried on in the 
prison. Besides this, the prisoners do all the necessary work of the establishment. 

The sanitary state of the prison is good. Notwithstanding the fact that many of the 
convicts are received in a more or less diseased condition, incident to a vicious life, or 
are debilitated by close confinement in jails, the average health is as good as it is 
outside. 

The most common cause of crime is drunkenness, which often, perhaps usually, ac¬ 
companies idleness. 

The State employs a Protestant chaplain, who gives his time entirely to the institu¬ 
tion ; and there is also a Catholic chaplain, who makes monthly visits for the benefit 
of the adherents of that faith. In addition to the duties proper of the regular chap¬ 
lain, he has the direction of the school and is in charge of the library. In his efforts 
for the moral and spiritual improvement of the prisoners, the chaplain has the assist¬ 
ance of volunteer laborers from among the philanthropic citizens of the village. 

In addition to the state prison, jails, and the industrial school for 
boys, we have an institution in the city of Milwaukee, known as the 
Milwaukee house of correction. This prison is for the reception and 
treatment of vagrants, disorderly persons, able-bodied paupers, and 
persons convicted of minor offenses. The inmates of the house of cor¬ 
rection are kept at work in association by, day under the rule of silence, 
and sleep in separate cells at night. The whole number imprisoned in 
1872 was 617, and the average number during the year was 68. The 
number discharged was 579, of whom 511 were men and 65 women ; 
177 were natives, and 102 foreigners. 

With a population of over twelve hundred thousand, the average 


number of inmates in the State prison was during the past year 

but.-. 200 

The number of persons confined in the jails of the State on the 
1st day of August last, deducting the insane, (which is probably 

a fair average for the year,) was. 106 

The average number in the Milwaukee house of correction during 
the year was. 68 


Making a total of.-.-. 371 


Is there any State in the Union that can show a better record in pro¬ 
portion to its population '? 

The following extract from the recent message of Governor Wash¬ 
burn to the legislature will be interesting in this connection : 

There is no subject more worthy of the careful attention of the legislature than 
that of our penal institutions. The best of men have been divided in opinion as to the 
best methods of treatment for the vicious and criminal portions of society. For some 
years past more attention has been given to the reformation of our criminal classes 
than formerly, and punishments have assumed a less vindictive character. 

In July next twenty years will have elapsed since the death penalty was abolished 
in this State. The experiment met with strong opposition from a large portion of 
the people of the State who predicted that a large increase of crime would result 
from the change. That prediction happily has not been verified, and the facts which 
I am about to state conclusively show that no State in this Union can boast greater 
exemption from crime than Wisconsin. With a population ot 1,200,000, representing 
almost every nationality, and two-fifths of foreign birth, statistics show that crime, 
instead of increasing with the growth of the State, has actually diminished. This is 
in a great degree due to a high-toned public sentiment, which causes the violated 
laws to be promptly vindicated. 

Since the abolition of the death penalty, there have been tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to the penitentiary for life, 71 person in all. Ot that number, 36 now 
remain, the rest having either died, been pardoned, or discharged by proper authority. 
There can be no doubt that the change in the law has rendered punishment much 
more certain, and I but express the opinion oi those who have most carefully consid- 









458 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


ered the question, as well as my own, when I state that but for that change in the law, 
at least one-lialf of those heretofore convicted would have escaped all punishment, so 
difficult is conviction when the penalty is death. In the five years that elapsed from 

1848 to 1853, I have no knowledge of more than one person haying suffered the 

extreme penalty of the law. This was not because of lack of offenses, hut of the 
extreme difficulty of conviction. 

In the year 1854, the number of convictions for the crime of murder was three ; in 
1855, three ; in 1856, three ; in 1857, three; in 1858, five ; in 1859, none; in 1860, two ; 

in 1861, none ; in 1862, two ; in 1863, eight; in 1864, none ; in 1865, five ; in 1866, one ; 

in 1867, four; in 1868, five ; in 1869, two; in 1870, four; in 1871, three; in 1872, one. 
I have taken some pains to learn what the conduct has been, since discharged from 
prison, of those convicted of the crime of murder who have been pardoned, and I have 
failed to learn of any instance where the party had rendered himself amenable to the 
law. On the contrary, so far as known, they have proved honest and peaceable citi¬ 
zens—extremely careful and circumspect in their intercourse with their fellow-men. 

TERRITORY OF UTAH. 

By A. P. Boclcwood, warden of the Territorial penitentiary. 


For about sixteen years my attention bas been officially called to the 
manner of executing the sentence of the court on convicts committed to 
the Utah penitentiary. My experience lias been five years as inspector 
and eleven years as warden. 

Laws are supposed to be made to fit the circumstances under which 
they are to be administered; the laws applicable under one set of cir¬ 
cumstances may not be under another. In Utah we have no intermediate 
prison or house of correction created by the territorial statutes ; conse¬ 
quently, the law endows the warden with large discretionary power. 
Under its provisions he is authorized, with the approval of the directors, 
to hire out any or all of the convicts on any public or private works. As 
we have no house of correction for juveniles, all persons convicted of 
high crimes or misdemeanors are sent to the penitentiary. Under the 
provisions of the law, I exercised my discretion in the classification of 
the convicts. 

The first class consists of old offenders or desperadoes, who may be 
generally considered past reclaiming. These, however, as well as all 
others, I endeavor to govern by kindness, and to create within them the 
sentiment of hope, without which the heart faints. I cannot better 
illustrate this point than by relating a circumstance that occurred some 
years since. Two of this class were arrested for horse-stealing, and, for 
want of bail, were committed to the county jail to await trial. While 
there they boasted, in presence and hearing of the keepers, of what they 
would and would not do when they- were committed to the peniten¬ 
tiary, all of which soon came to my ears. This enabled me to prepare 
for them. In the early part of June they were delivered into my hands. 
I bade them make themselves comfortable and contented, and they 
would be properly cared for. When supper-time drew nigh, I asked 
them if they were fond of bread and milk. They made answer that they 
were very fond of it, but had not had the luxury for several years, add¬ 
ing that it would remind them of their childhood home, when mother 
used to serve it out. Soon I went in with the coveted meal, and with it 
a bowl of strawberries. They fairly laughed for joy. Next morning 
beefsteak, vegetables, bread, and milk were served for breakfast, the 
sight of which made their hearts again leap for joy. Next came the 
assignment of the labor which they had sworn not to do; nevertheless 
they receded from their vow, and quietly commenced. When all was 
suitably arranged, and I was about to withdraw, I cautioned the super¬ 
intendent, in their hearing, not to work these men too hard, as they had 
been shut up in the county jail for several weeks, and were not used to the 


PENITENTIARY OF UTAH-PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 459 


scorching rays of the sun, and their hands were tender and not recently 
accustomed to the handling of rough tools, like our picks and shovels. 
1 then stepped into my carriage and drove off. In the evening the 
superintendent reported that the day had passed off quietly, and that 
the work had progressed well. At the close of the day these convicts 
inquired of the others if this was the way they were treated all the time. 
They were answered in the affirmative, and assured that the warden 
would be as kind to them as a father. The next day being Sunday, I went 
in and inquired after the welfare of each convict. At length 1 came to 
the two in question, and spoke a few kind words to them. They com¬ 
menced sobbing, which was followed by a flood of tears, and a voluntary 
confession of what they had said when in jail. They promised that I 
should have no trouble with them. Kindness had melted and subdued 
them. If men so hardened can be conquered by kindness, who shall be 
despaired off 

The second class consists of prisoners of mature age, who, under the 
baneful influence of liquor or momentary passion or sudden temptation, 
have, in an unguarded hour, committed some criminal act. Criminals 
of this class are frequently reclaimed, and are sometimes hired out, as 
those are who are immediately to be mentioned as belonging to the next 
class. 

The third class includes the youth, who are not hardened in crime, nor 
have their hearts yet been seared so that they are not subjects of reform. 
To this class my attention has been particularly directed, and, as author¬ 
ized by law, I frequently hire them out to a parent, brother, or friend. 
When application is made for a convict of this class, I must have 
three guarantees before hiring him out. I must be convinced first that 
the convict is safe from assault by persons who would seek revenge for 
past offenses; secondly, that the person offering to hire him may be 
safely intrusted with the execution of the sentence; and, thirdly, that 
the convict’s word of honor can be confided in. If satisfied on all these 
points, I lay the matter before the board of directors. If they approve, 
the contract is entered into; if not, all remains in statu quo. One con¬ 
dition of the contract is that the employer shall suitably feed, clothe, 
guard, and meet all other charges that may be incurred in the execution 
of the sentence, and pay to the warden the amount set forth in the 
agreement. A second condition is that he shall see that the convict 
abide under the rules of the institution, as far as they may be applica¬ 
ble. A further condition is that the convict shall be returned on the 
order of the warden, without the necessity of assigning any reason 
therefor. All these stipulations and some others having been entered 
into, the employer is appointed deputy warden, and files a bond with 
security for the faithful performance of his duties in the execution of the 
sentence on the convict committed to his custody. Under this mode of 
procedure the convict is placed, so to speak, under the care of a father, 
brother, or friend, besides remaining still under the watchful protection 
of the warden, who has power to order him returned at pleasure. 

Now for the practical working of this system. About four per cent, 
have proved recreant to their trust; ninety-six per cent, have been in a 
measure reclaimed ; fully one-half have settled down to be good citizens; 
and the balance have passed off to parts to me unknown. Suffice it to 
say that not one of this class has been committed to my custody for a 
second offense. 

Having said this much on the subject of discipline and reform, I now 
proceed to the preventive measures employed in Utah. First, our license 
law is nearly tantamount to prohibition, especially in small or thinly 


460 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


inhabited settlements. Secondly, the Territory is subdivided into about 
one hundred and seventy wards, or precincts, nearly all of which have 
an organized female relief society, whose business it is to look after and 
supply the needs of the poor and the children that are not suitably 
cared for. These societies are exclusively managed by the ladies; all 
aid rendered is by voluntary donation. The higher aim of the society 
is to prevent children being brought up under demoralizing influences, 
and to direct the juveniles in the paths of virtue. Parents and guard¬ 
ians, not willing to accept the proffered aid, are free to take their own 
course, so far as the society is concerned. Thirdly, by an act passed by 
the legislative assembly in 1853, the probate court of each county is 
authorized (on complaint that there are in the county minor children 
who are not properly brought up) to issue an order to a proper officer 
requiring him to bring said child or children before the court, and sum¬ 
mon the parents or guardian, as the case may be, to appear and show 
cause, if any they have, why said children should not be bound out to 
suitable persons under the provisions of the statute. 

Most of the citizens of Utah are partial to large families ; consequently 
there is not much trouble in procuring suitable places for children in 
the most respectable families, with little or no cost to the county. 

The salutary effects of these preventive measures are visible in the 
streets of our cities by the absence of prostitutes walking, mincing, and 
tinkling as they go, designing to lead the unsuspecting youth from the 
path of virtue. As yet no female convict has been committed to my 
custody, nor to the custody of my predecessors in office. 

V.—PROCEEDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. 

[Reported by Rev. William H. Tiffany.] 

The proceedings of the first day consisted simply of what was done at 
the opening session, which has been already reported in a former part 
of these transactions. 

SECOND DAY—MORNING SESSION. 

Wednesday, January 22, 1873. 

The congress re assembled at 10 a. m. in Paine’s Hall. 

In the absence of the president, the Pev. Dr. Bellows, of New York, 
one of the vice-presidents, called the meeting to order. 

Prayer was offered by the Pev. Thomas K. Fessenden, of Connecti¬ 
cut. 

Judge Walker, of Michigan, chairman of the business committee, 
moved that the congress hold two daily sessions, viz, from 10 to 3 in 
the morning, and from 7 to 9.30 in the evening. Carried. 

The annual report of the standing committee on prison discipline was 
read by Dr. Wines, in the absence of Z. P. Brockway, of Michigan, 
chairman, detained by sickness. (For the report see page 331.) 

The report of the standing committee on discharged prisoners was 
read by Mr. Allinson, of New Jersey, chairman. (For the report see 
page 336.) 

Governor Seymour, who had assumed the chair during the reading of Mr. 
Brockway’s paper, said he hoped that the report, able and satisfactory 
as it was in most respects, would not go out without some qualification. 
He feared that it favored restraint too strongly. There was a class of 
offenders, called “ rotary men,” appearing often before the courts and 


DISCUSSION ON PRISON DISCIPLINE, &C. 


461 


in prison, who needed to be sharply dealt by; but he was afraid 
of police supervision. Virtue could not be made by coercion. He had 
an abiding belief that there was good in every man, and that this should 
be sought out, encouraged, and developed. The number of pardons 
granted by him during his four years’ administration as governor of 
New York had been made matter of reproach. With him it was rather 
an occasion of gratulation and pride. He believed that very many 
reformations had been thus effected. He had witnessed many touching 
instances of gratitude, and one which, though perfectly sincere, had an 
air somewhat ludicrous. He had extended clemency to a poor fellow 
who, in expressing his thanks for the favor, said : “ Governor, I hope 
to be able to do as much for you some time.” Another consideration : 
he thought there was too prevalent a desire to make our prisons not 
only self-supporting but sources of revenue, and that the report gave 
too much countenance to this feeling. He believed in making prisoners 
work and earn money ; but he believed also in giving them .a share in 
their earnings, and a pretty large share too. Labor so performed would 
be far more valuable to the prisoner, for it would be willing, cheerful, 
and hearty; and it would tend to beget a love for work and to form the 
habit of industry. What he wanted was the reformation of the criminal, 
and he believed that this would be better effected by kindly care than 
by excessive coercion and restraint. But he would not close without 
saying that, despite these criticisms, he regarded the report as an excel¬ 
lent one, and thought it contained many valuable suggestions. 

Dr. Wines agreed, in the main, with what had fallen from the president, 
but thought he had attached too strong a meaning to some expressions in 
the report. He was quite sure that there was no man in this congress who 
felt more strongly for the prisoner, or acted more wisely on his behalf, than 
Mr. Brock way in the management of bis prison at Detroit. As regarded 
police supervision after discharge, it was not much known in this coun¬ 
try, and doubtless there was a strong feeling against it; but it was a 
question worthy of being studied. It was discussed in the London 
Congress. The continental delegates opposed it as harsh and injurious 
as practised among them, but approved of it where, as in England, it 
was of a friendly character and designed to shield and help the convict. 
When so practised, they thought it wholesome and beneficial. It was, 
however, applied in England only to “habitual criminals,” whom Gov¬ 
ernor Seymour had described as “revolvers,” and in reference to whom 
he had admitted that “restraint” might be salutary. 

Mr. H. Thane Miller, of Ohio, heartily indorsed what the president had 
said, and thought the congress would do the same. The diamond senti¬ 
ment of his address last night was, that criminals “ needed a spirit to 
guide, and a Saviour to atone.” That was true. The only hope for the 
criminal was in a change of heart; and therefore, officers having them in 
charge should be men of God. More care should be had in the instruction 
of convicts, in setting them good examples, and in pointing them to the 
Saviour and the Holy Spirit for salvation and sanctification. The read¬ 
ing of the convicts was also important. He believed in the idea ex¬ 
pressed in Mr. Brockway’s report, that there should be a compulsory law 
to have the children of the convict and all children sent to school. 

As regarded the second report, read by Mr. Allinson, on discharged 
prisoners, he believed that great good would be accomplished by 
the practical application of its suggestions. Convicts must be helped 
when they come out of prison, not only with good advice, but money or 
its equivalent. They must be aided in getting work. More than fifty 
discharged from the Ohio state prison last year had had employment 


462 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

furnished them, to the equal benefit of themselves and the community. 
He hoped that all would carry the spirit of that report to their homes. 

Mr. Albree, of Pennsylvania, had visited Mr. Brock way's prison, and 
spoke of it in terms of w r arm commendation. He thought terms of im¬ 
prisonment should be made longer, so that there might be time for 
reformation, and for the successive steps which that work required. 
Prisoners needed sympathy and love, and these should be shown in 
person, not by proxy. He was a director in the Allegheny County 
workhouse, of which Mr. H. Cordier was warden. The institution was 
started only a few years ago. It was conducted on reformatory princi¬ 
ples, and promised great success. 

Hr. Wright, of Tennessee, expressed warm approval of both reports, 
and thought the congress would indorse them. 

Colonel Burr, of Ohio, did not desire to occupy the time of the con¬ 
gress. He only wished to say a word on one or two points. He had 
been in charge of a prison having an average of a thousand men, and 
knew something of the matters discussed here. The idea had been 
thrown out that officers looked down upon prisoners as a lower order of 
beings. This might be so in some cases, but it was different from his 
own experience and practice. He forgot that they were prisoners, and 
looked upon them as brothers. There was but one thing that would 
really and radically reform criminals, and that was the Christian religion, 
the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, and salvation through the 
blood of Jesus. He thought that police supervision would not do in this 
country, nor had he much faith in the idea of indefinite sentences, as 
suggested in both reports. The great difficulty with discharged prison¬ 
ers was the idea of their having been convicts. If they tried to conceal 
the fact, they w r ere sure to be found out and crushed. Police supervis¬ 
ion he thought would add to this load. Put some trust in the prisoner, 
and thus beget in him the desire to lead a better life; this will inspire 
hope and prompt effort to deserve your confidence. 

Hr. Bellows, of New York, was sorry to see any conflict introduced 
here. He was much struck with the independence of Mr. Brockway. 
Independent men are men of strength. They often combine opposite 
traits, and are capable of high thought and great action. He regretted 
also to see a conflict between theory and practice. This was illogical 
and unnatural. All right practice is based on sound theory, and all 
just theory is the child of correct practice. A war between theory and 
practice was therefore an internecine war. Let us put heads and 
hearts and hands together, and make a perfect man. Another thing 
he was sorry to see, namely, a conflict between prison reformers and 
society at large, as if society was not in favor of true reform. Society 
was reformatory; and the whole prison system did not begin to com¬ 
pare in conservative and reformatory power with the great natural laws 
of society itself. Men were stayed up by public opinion, by a sense of 
decency, by the desire to stand well in the community, and the like. 

Eev. Mr. Milligan, of Pennsylvania, was opposed to police supervis¬ 
ion of discharged prisoners. What we wanted for prisoners as well 
as others, was the atonement of Christ and the spirit of love. He had 
helped a great many discharged prisoners, spending hundreds of dollars* 
this way ; and only one man, thus aided, had ever proved false to the 
trust reposed in him. 

The Eev. Mr. Woodbury, of Ehode Island, read a paper by Hr. 
Clarke, of Massachusetts, who was unable to be present, on u The final 
cause of criminal legislation as affecting modes of punishment.” (For 
this paper see p. 370.) 


DISCUSSION ON INDEFINITE SENTENCES. 


463 


Dr. Wines, of New York, read a u Summary of the views and sug¬ 
gestions contained in the report for 1872 of the Board of Public Char¬ 
ities of Pennsylvania,” sent by Mr. George W. Harrison, president of 
the board. (For this paper see p. 367.) 

Dr. Wines said that one fact had struck him forcibly, viz, that all the four 
papers read this morning—Mr. Brockway’s, Mr. Allinson’s, Dr. Clarke’s, 
and Mr. Harrison’s—had contained approving references to the idea 
that criminals should not be restored to liberty till they gave evidence 
of being better fitted for citizenship than they were on entering the 
prison; and a paper would be read this evening, communicated by Dr. 
Despine, of France, which embodied the same sentiment. Dr. Despine 
went further, and expressed the opinion that when prisons became real 
reformatories, as this was their avowed aim, the incorporation of the 
principle of indefinite sentences in the penitentiary system would be an 
absolute necessity. All must admit that this principle was just; the 
only difficulty was in finding a right way to apply it. But he believed 
the problem capable of solution, for he held that God never made a 
truth into which he did not put a power which, sooner or later, would 
cause it to prevail. When the reformation of criminals was sought 
in dead earnest , difficulties would disappear, and our way would be made 
plain. 

General Miner, of Missouri, expressed his opposition to the principles 
both of indefinite sentences and police supervision. 

Mr. Hageman, of New Jersey, expressed concurrence in these views. 

Mr. Bichard Vaux, of Pennsylvania, advocated the same side of both 
these questions with the last two speakers. He had the greatest pos¬ 
sible respect for Mr. Brockway. He was behind no man in admiration 
of his ability and success as a prison officer. Possibly his views might 
be applicable to the locality where he lived and worked. But what might 
be true in Michigan would not be true in Philadelphia or New York. 
Police supervision extended the prison beyond its walls. He would say, 
with entire respect, that New York had, in its prison at Sing Sing, a gi¬ 
gantic manufactory of crime. Criminals were there educated to go out and 
rob with greater skill and success. In the city of New York the rogues 
were stronger than the whole power exerted to keep them in subjection. 
Hence there was failure in the courts, judges and juries often conniving 
or winking at wrong. Mr. Brockway’s plan would vastly increase the 
police force in New York, requiring a cordon of policemen around each 
block in the city. What was applicable in England would not be per¬ 
mitted in this country. The prolongation of the prison, after the pris¬ 
oner has gone forth from its walls, would not be tolerated among us. 
The most important suggestion was that we hold out hope to the pris¬ 
oner. Beform should be the end in view; and hope should be held out 
from the beginning. 

Mr. Bradford, of Connecticut, said that he took square issue with the 
last speaker; he believed that we should have supervision of the dis¬ 
charged prisoner, if it was of the right kind. None could object to the 
continued supervision of a kind father after his son had left the paternal 
roof. This was the kind of supervision that discharged convicts needed. 

Mr. Coates, of Pennsylvania, was against the idea of indefinite sen¬ 
tences, and denied the right of society to exercise supervision after the 
prisoner had served out his time. 

The Bev. Mr. Fessenden, of Connecticut, read a report on the pre¬ 
ventive,* reformatory, and penal institutions in that State. (For this 
report, see p. 379.) 

Dr. Wines read a report on the prison question in California, which 


464 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 187:5. 


had been prepared and forwarded by the Rev. James Woodworth, sec¬ 
retary of the prison commission of that State, who was unable to attend 
in person. (For this paper, see p. 375.) 

l)r. Bellows, of New York, asked for information as to the training of 
the girls mentioned in the report of Mr. Fessenden, whether the causes 
of crime in their cases were inquired into, and whether the treatment 
was specially adapted to each case. He spoke in strong commendation 
of Dr. Carpenter’s essay on unconscious cerebration, and wished to as¬ 
certain whether the treatment of the girls referred to was based upon 
the truths contained in that book. 

Mr. Fessenden explained that the points presented in the inquiry of 
Dr. Bellows were made matters of examination, and the treatment was 
controlled by the result. But they found that clean clothes, good water, 
and plenty of soap made a wonderful change. One of the girls, after she 
had shed her coat of filth, came out as handsome as a “picture.” A 
police olficer said to him of another of the girls, “If you can make any¬ 
thing of that girl, you can reform any one.” Yet she is a good girl. 
Our success is very cheering in this work. 

Mr. Janney, of Maryland, referring to statements made in the two 
reports read, said he rejoiced that temperance was making some prog¬ 
ress. The fact that nine-tenths of the crime committed could be traced 
to intemperance, showed that effort should be made to promulgate the 
principles of temperance and to secure their general practical adoption. 
The offspring of intemperate parents, when they tell into crime, were 
more to be pitied than blamed. 

Hon. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, said that there was now organ¬ 
izing, in his State, a farm-school, based on the will of Mr. Watkinson, 
the funds for the support of which amounted to about $100,000. Mr. 
Watkinson had also left a small sum to aid discharged prisoners. He 
quite agreed with the president (Governor Seymour) that a portion of 
the funds arising from the labor of the convicts should be set aside for 
their use when discharged. 

Mr. White, of Pennsylvania, said that they had established a work- 
house, a few years ago, in Allegheny County, and that the earnings of 
the convicts had exceeded their expectations. They made oil-barrels. 
They gave three cents a barrel to the convicts, who made, on an average, 
twenty-two barrels a day. A man, committed for two years for petty 
offense, had earned $250 for himself. 

Colonel Burr, of Ohio, said that in his State they were authorized by 
the board of directors to place to the credit of each convict, as a reward 
for good conduct, such sum as they thought fit, not exceeding 10 per 
cent, of his earnings. 

Mr. P. T. Miller, of Missouri, said that his experience as a prison 
officer had given him some knowledge of this matter. It was no argu¬ 
ment to say that a bad man, because he was bad, should make no more 
money than a better man, because he was better. We should cultivate 
and encourage industrial skill as well as morality. We should change 
coerced into free labor. Money is mighty to move men even in a right 
direction. 

Letters were here received from a number of penal, reformatory, and 
charitable institutions of Baltimore, inviting the members of the con¬ 
gress to visit such institutions during their stay in the city. The invi¬ 
tations were accepted with thanks. 

A recess was taken till 7 o’clock p. m. 


MISS LINDA GILBERT S ADDRESS. 


465 


EVENING SESSION. 

The congress re assembled at 7 p. m. 

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved. 

The president, with complimentary remarks, introduced Miss Linda 
Gilbert, of Illinois, who gave an account of her extensive visitation of 
prisons in different States, in which she communicated a great amount 
of interesting statistical information. She said that 90 per cent, of all 
the prisoners in the country were more or less intemperate. The num¬ 
ber of county jails in all the States was 2,197, and the average 
number of prisoners in each jail was about 8. The average number of 
prisoners in all the prisons in the country did not fall much, if any, below 
40,000. Seventy-seven per cent, of the inmates of our prisons never 
learned a trade. Forty per cent, were illiterate. Thirty-eight per cent, 
lived out of the family relation, and had no home influences. She said 
that only parts of trades were usually learned in prisons; hardly any¬ 
where was a full trade imparted. Some thought that criminals could 
not be reformed; but Mary Magdalene had seven devils cast out of her. 
There was much mechanical ingenuity shut up within prison walls. 
She knew of one prisoner whose skill had brought thousands of dollars 
into the treasury of the State. Her own special work had been to pro¬ 
vide libraries for county jails, and she was now engaged in collecting 
books for the new jail of Saint Louis. Books were the photographed 
souls that have brightened, and yet brighten, the world. Her belief 
was that mercy should be mingled with justice, and reform with pun¬ 
ishment. 

Dr. Wines read a paper on u The Criminal,” which had been commu¬ 
nicated by Dr. Despine, of France. (For this paper, see page 338.) 

Judge Walker, of Michigan, read a report on the preventive, reform¬ 
atory, and penal institutions of his State. (For said report, see page 
411.) 

Hon. John F. Hageman, of New Jersey, read a similar report for that 
State. (For his report, see page 428.) 

The president (Governor Seymour) said that the papers just read 
were now open for discussion. He declared himself in favor of provid¬ 
ing discharged convicts with a certificate, engrossed on parchment, 
with seal, &c., attesting their good conduct during their term of imprison¬ 
ment. He thought that such a testimonial would be a stimulus to a vir¬ 
tuous life. The first impulse of nearly all men is to turn away from 
the convict and leave him to his fate. But such a certificate might in¬ 
fluence some to throw aside their prejudice, and to aid him in again 
becoming a good citizen. 

Mr. Pierce, of Massachusetts, remarked that something had been said 
of the demoralizing influence of jails on boys and girls. Many had been 
struck with horror at seeing small children at such places, intermingled 
with hardened criminals, who took pleasure in corrupting them, and in 
preparing them to corrupt society on their release. They had a visiting 
agency established by law in Massachusetts. The agent and his assist¬ 
ants interested themselves in children charged with violating the law, 
aided them on trial, and secured them homes. Boys were restless, un¬ 
easy, fickle. They needed some friend to guide and guard them; some 
one whom they could call upon, and from whom they could obtain 
counsel and aid. It might be asked, How do these boys get to prison ! 
He answered: By the lower courts, which hurried them off to jail, when 
only accused and not proved guilty of crime, and often not guilty in 
fact. There was some friction in the system, but it worked the best of 
H. Ex. 185-30 


466 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


any plan yet devised. Some of the courts sought to break up the agency. 
But the people had confidence in it, and kept it in motion. It was doing 
great good. 

Mr. Yaux, of Pennsylvania, commented on the paper of Dr. Despine, 
regarding it as marked by profound thought, keen analysis, and a 
thoroughly scientific cast, though he could not accept all its views, par¬ 
ticularly the part relating to indefinite sentences. 

Dr. Wines, of New York, concurred in the judgment just expressed of 
the ability and value of Dr. Despine’s essay. He thought it contained 
seeds of thought which could not fail to spring up and bear, in the end, 
a rich harvest. 

The congress adjourned till to morrow at 10 a. m. 

THIRD DAY—MORNING SESSION. 

Thursday, January 23, 1873. 

The congress met at 10 a. m., Governor Seymour presiding, and was 
opened with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Smith, of Maryland. 

The minutes of yesterday were read and approved. Dr. Wines an¬ 
nounced that, through funds proffered for this express purpose, the 
National Prison Association had been able to issue the complete works 
of Edward Livingston on criminal jurisprudence, aud they offered these 
incomparable volumes to every person who, by an annual subscription 
of $10, became a member of the association. 

Dr. Bellows, of New York, said that this congress ought not to sepa¬ 
rate without an expression of its sense of obligation to that great man 
to whom penal science owed so much. He therefore moved, and the 
congress unanimously adopted, the following resolution: 

Resolved , That prison science owes an inextinguishable debt of grati¬ 
tude and commemoration to the great American expounder of the 
humane principles which have since been acknowledged as the true 
guide to reformers of penal law and administration; that Mr. Living¬ 
ston, by his genius and moral elevation, anticipated by half a century 
the ideas which are now just beginning to prevail among students of 
criminal and penitentiary science $ and that his work is a monument of 
learning, largeness of thought, nobility of feeling, and practical 
sagacity—an honor to the country of which he was so distinguished a 
citizen, and to humanity, to which he was so noble an example. 

Governor Seymour said that the resolution of Dr. Bellows did no more 
than justice to Mr. Livingston in saying that he was the greatest man 
of our country in so far as penal science was concerned. He believed that 
he was also the foremost statesman that this country had produced. He 
had received a copy of an edition in French of Mr. Livingston’s work, 
recently issued in Paris. He therefore moved, as additional to that of 
Dr. Bellows, the following resolution : 

Resolved , That this congress learns with great satisfaction that M. 
Charles Lucas, a distinguished member of the Institute of France, has 
published, under the auspices of the Institute, an exposition of the penal 
code for Louisiana and for the United States, by Edward Livingston, 
and we are gratified that this work of our illustrious countryman is thus 
brought to the attention of European countries. 

On motion of Dr. Wines, it was ordered that a committee of five be 
appointed to consider the expediency of making application to the Con¬ 
gress of the United States for aid to the National Prison Association, 
and to report to this convention. 


DISCUSSION ON REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 467 

The chair named for the committee Judge Walker, R. K. White, 
Edward Earle, Dr. Bellows, and Dr. Wines. 

Dr. Bellows presented and read the annual report of the executive 
committee of the National Prison Association. (For this report see 
page 321.) 

A paper on u Untried Prisoners,” communicated to the congress by 
William J. Mullen, of Pennsylvania, was then read. (For this paper see 
page 362.) . v 

The chair announced that the two papers just read were open for dis¬ 
cussion. 

Mr. Powell, of New York, desired to express the great pleasure which, 
in the main, he had felt in listening to the report read by Dr. Bellows. 
He, however, took exception to the moral value attached by the report 
to the dress of women. There was a vast amount of waste, and worse 
than waste, in this direction. He had lately seen a lady in Washington 
the flounces of whose dress alone cost $1,000, and the rest of the dress 
corresponded in style and expensiveness. This matter of dress was 
becoming one of the strongest temptations to crime. He favored the 
dress of Quaker ladies, which was neat and economical, and instanced 
Elizabeth Fry and Lucretia Mott as illustrations. 

Dr. Bellows accepted the criticism, saying that his remarks on the 
subject of dress were not in the report, but were thrown oft extempo¬ 
raneously in the reading. He took back all that he had said, except the 
principle underlying his remarks, which he believed to be just and true. 

Governor Seymour hoped that the doctor would not surrender too 
much. He thought the principle involved a powerful means of cultivat¬ 
ing and refining the sensibilities. We had better seek to quicken these 
in prisoners, rather than conquer or crush them. 

Mr. Pritchard, of Kentucky, said that for three years past he had had 
opportunity to witness the working of prisons. They had a most 
objectionable system in Kentucky. One feature of the system was the 
leasing out not simply the labor of the prisoners, but the prisoners them¬ 
selves, to contractors. The system placed the inmates of the prison com¬ 
pletely under the control of the contractors. They worked the men for 
money only, and were sometimes harsh and merciless. Kentucky had 
lavished millions on other charities, but nothing on the improvement of 
prison discipline. They needed the warden system, so as to have mat¬ 
ters under the control of the State and not that of contractors. He 
was willing to trust the people, the great mass of whom were right on 
this subject. With a warden at the head of the prison, and the disci¬ 
pline placed in his hands, they would escape some of the worst features 
of their present system. It was unwise for the States to rent the con¬ 
victs. He offered a resolution on the subject, which was referred to the 
business committee. 

Colonel Burr, of Ohio, expressed his thanks to Dr. Bellows for his re¬ 
port. We should not only keep alive the sensibilities of prisoners, but, 
what was kindred to that, we should exercise the spirit and power of 
kindness instead of mere force. All that Dr. Bellows had said had 
been verified over and over again in his experience and observation. 
He had a thousand prisoners under his charge, and his great source of 
power over them lay in the fact that he was their friend. A single and 
even a trivial act of kindness would produce great effect. 

At this point Governor Seymour called the Hon. Mr. Yaux, of Penn¬ 
sylvania, one of the vice-presidents, to the chair. 

Colonel Burr continued: He said that where force had proved of 
scarcely any avail, a kind word had accomplished wonders. A Prussian 


468 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 187:3. 


engraver liad been in bis prison ; be was a very fine workman and much 
desired by counterfeiters, wbo would have given thousands of dollars to 
get him for their work. They provided him with means of escape, drills, 
&c., and $5,000, and be readily succeeded, but was caught. He was 
placed in a cell and expected severe punishment. But when he (Colonel 
Burr) went to see him, be simply said, “ Charlie, put on your coat and 
go to the shop, to work.” The man started, surprised, and said, with 
tears in his eyes, “ Warden, I did not expect this.” He walked away, 
and turned again and said, “Warden, I will never try this again.” 
Again be started, and after going a few paces be stopped a third time, 
and added, “ Warden, you will never have any more trouble with me as 
long as I am with you.” And he was true to his word. That man 
loved him to-day as one of his own children. 

Dr. Wines, of New York, was afraid that the enthusiasm excited by 
the magnificent paper of Dr. Bellows would draw away the attention of 
the congress from the modest but very valuable paper of Mr. Mullen, 
read immediately after it. He hoped that that document would receive 
the attention which it so well deserved. It set forth, clearly and 
strongly, the duty of society to persons under arrest, but not yet brought 
to trial. It showed how much they stood in need of some friendly inter¬ 
vention, and how much suffering and wrong might be prevented by 
timely and judicious action on their behalf. 

Mr. Merrefield, of Maryland, emphasized the remarks of Dr. Wines, 
and moved that Mr. Mullen’s paper be referred to the business commit¬ 
tee. Carried. 

Mr. Kockwood, of Utah, agreed to all that had been said on the 
power of kindness. He had in his prison three of the worst 
“roughs” in that Territory. When first committed, they threatened 
vengeance, and declared their purpose to escape. He gave them 
bread and milk, with strawberries, for their breakfast, and took them 
out on the road to work. On leaving them he instructed the overseer 
not to work them too hard, as their hands were soft and would blister. 
The other prisoners told them that if they behaved well they would be 
kindly treated. Next Sunday morning they confessed that their inten¬ 
tion had been to destroy their keepers and escape. Kindness had con¬ 
quered them, and they wept like children. They had been, and con¬ 
tinued to be, among the best men in the prison. He had found it im¬ 
portant to separate the old from the young. Ninety per cent, of the 
prisoners were better men on their release than they had been on their 
commitment. That was his experience. Kindness gave power. Hope 
should be held out to prisoners. 

Mr. Bigham, of Pennsylvania, said that under the leadership of the 
great founder, William Penn, his State had been a pioneer in prison 
discipline, and she intended to maintain her pre-eminence. 

General Eggleston, of Mississippi, said that he was from the South, 
and wished to say a few words respecting that section of the coun¬ 
try. He claimed that his State was in advance of some of the older 
States. She had forbidden the use of the lash in punishing prisoners. 
They had adopted the commutation system, shortening the term of im¬ 
prisonment for good conduct three days each month. They had reli¬ 
gious service, Sunday-school, a fine melodeon played by a convict, and 
excellent singers among the prisoners. They found music a power in 
moral training. On Christmas they gave the convicts an extra dinner, 
and full freedom within the prison premises to converse and amuse them¬ 
selves as they pleased. They found no harm, but rather benefit, to be 
the result of this indulgence. On his release they took from the pris- 


DISCUSSION ON INTEMPERANCE AND CRIME. 469 

oner every mark of liis convict service, gave liim a complete outfit of 
clothing, and ten dollars iii money. 

A report from New Hampshire, by the Rev. Dr. Clark, was read. (See 
page 426.) ’ v 

A report from South Carolina, prepared by General C. J. Stolbrand, 
was read by Judge Walker. (See page 447.) 

The Rev. Mr. Woodbury, of Rhode Island, read a report from that 
State. (See page 440.) 

Dr* Wines, of New York, read a paper contributed by Sir Walter 
Crofton, of England, on sundry points discussed at the Congress of 
Loudon, with a view of correcting certain errors into which he consid¬ 
ered members of that body bad fallen regarding the state of things in 
his country. (See page .3^9.) 

Dr. Wines said that it gave him pain to differ from a gentleman 
whom he so much respected, admired, and loved, both on account of 
his personal qualities and his great services to the cause of prison re¬ 
form as he did with the author of that paper. Still, he could not accept 
his views on penal labor as an instrument of reformation, or the lash as 
a disciplinary punishment in prisons. These were the only points, he 
believed; certainly they were the principal ones, on which he dissented 
from the opinions of his distinguished friend, to whom the world is so 
much indebted for his labors in the cause of prison reform. 

Mr. Powell, of New York, read a paper on u Intemperance and Crime.” 
(See page 364.) 

Mr. Pierce, of Massachusetts, said that the paper just read treated in¬ 
temperance as the chief cause of criminality. But mere statistics would 
not show what produced crime. Intemperance was often an incident of 
low life. He referred to the separate system, the Crofton system, and 
the Maconochie system of prison discipline, and condemned them all as 
u weighed in the balance and found wanting.” He did not come there 
to boast of his own State; there were things there that ought to be dif¬ 
ferent ; but the worst thing they had to contend with was the indiffer¬ 
ence of the people on this question of prison reform. The administra¬ 
tion of county prisons in Massachusetts was very objectionable; you 
could not work into them any regular system. 

Mr. Coates, of Pennsylvania, admitted that intemperance was not the 
only cause of crime, but it was one of the greatest, in his view the very 
greatest, of these causes, and should be distinctly so set forth. In this 
matter, he that was not with us was against us. Let no man tell him 
that they had not the power to crush this giant enemy to the order and 
welfare of society. They had the power if they would but use it. He 
appealed, in conclusion, to the members of the congress, as men and 
as Christians, to aid in the suppression of this great evil. 

Mr. Vaux, of Pennsylvania, said that he fully indorsed the views of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Pierce) on this subject. He did not 
believe that intemperance was the great cause of crime; there were 
others greater. He objected to sweeping accusations. The worst mur¬ 
der in New York, that of the policy-dealer, was not caused by intem¬ 
perance; and so in the Stokes case. He hoped temperance would suc¬ 
ceed, and he would do what he could to help its success; but, said he, 
let us be wise, and not by the mere use of terms, by dreams, increase 
the catalogue of crimes. 

Mr. Folger, of New Hampshire, said that the rule laid down by the 
Savior was, u by their fruits ye shall know them.” It was by that 
rule that intemperance should be judged in its relation to crime. He 
was glad the question had been brought before us. He was sorry it had 
been ignored at London. Despite the silence maintained there, the 


470 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


governor of an .English prison had informed him that drink brought most 
of his prisoners there. As to what had been stigmatized as police 
espionage , we might judge that by its fruits also. It had been tried and 
worked well in England. So it might be in this country. There it was 
a kind care, and not an espionage at all. 

Dr. Parish, of Pennsylvania, had desired to hear the paper on intem¬ 
perance, but had not been in at the reading. He concurred in the views 
of Mr. Vaux. He once asked the chaplain of the Eastern penitentiary 
how many inebriates they had there. He replied, “not one; inebri¬ 
ates are not the kind of persons who become convicts. 77 He protested 
against the use of sweeping declarations—against ultraism. Drunken 
ness was not, per se, a crime. 

Mr. Powell, of New York, replying to Dr. Parish, said that he had visited 
the Eastern penitentiary, and was informed by the w T arden that nine-tenths 
of the inmates had been addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors. As to 
the murderer, Foster, it was in evidence that he had spent the evening in 
drinking, and Stokes was of the same character; he had been assured 
that he was under the influence of liquor when he committed the act. 
The paper he had read did not undertake to fix the status of drunken¬ 
ness ; the laws and the courts had done that. 

The Eev. Mr. Woodbury, of lthode Island, said that we were very apt to 
consider things that seemed to be connected as cause and effect. We might 
possibly err in this. None of us would consider drunkenness as a crime of 
itself ; but we all agreed that intemperance and intoxication were indic¬ 
ative of a want of self-control, in which state all crimes became pos¬ 
sible ; and a lack or neglect of possible self-control was sin. The appe¬ 
tite for drink was sometimes inherited ; and the desire for gratification 
came upon its subjects periodically, say, every six or twelve months, 
and was then uncontrollable. He once roomed in a theological school 
with a young gentleman whose appetite came upon him so strongly that 
he shut himself up for several days and secretly indulged in drink. And 
then, after an interval of soberness, he would have another surrender 
of himself to drink. The habit of intemperance was formed by indul¬ 
gence, not inherited, or caused by disease. This habit was indicative 
of a want of self-command, a lack of full manhood, that we should en¬ 
deavor to develop and strengthen. Persons without this self-command 
were often shown by facts and confession to have been suddenly assailed 
with temptation, without any previous intention, to commit crime. Con¬ 
victs very frequently stated that they had no thought of doing the 
wrong until they became intoxicated. 

Recess until 7 o’clock p. m. 

EVENING SESSION. 

The congress re-assembled at the appointed hour, Governor Seymour 
in the chair. 

Mr. Develin, of New l r ork, read a paper on the susceptibility of crim¬ 
inals to reformatory influences, communicated by Dr. Anderson, presi¬ 
dent of the New York Catholic Protectory, who was unable to be pres¬ 
ent himself. (For Dr. Anderson’s paper see page 359.) 

Dr. Wines said that it would be impossible for him to present his an- 
anual report in full, unless the congress was prepared to devote a day 
to hearing it read. As this evening was to be given up to a considera¬ 
tion of reformatory work, he would read what his report contained on 
the reformatory system of Great Britain. (See Part I of his report, 

pp. 116-122.) 


DISCUSSION ON REFORMATORY WORK. 


471 


Dr. Wines read a communication from Mr. Demetz, tounder and 
director of the penitentiary colony of Mettray, France, on the prepara¬ 
tory school, connected with the colony, for the training of sub-officers to 
be employed in the institution. (For the letter of Mr. Demetz, see 
page 358.) 

The Rev. Mr. Woodbury, of Rhode Island, read an exceedingly in¬ 
teresting paper on preventive and reformatory work in Massachusetts, 
prepared by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, a member of the board of public chari¬ 
ties in that State. (For Mr. Sanborn’s paper see page 400.) 

Mr. Develin then addressed the congress in regard to the Catholic 
Protectory of New York City. He said that the institution was founded 
and commenced operations in 1863. It had since aided 7,000 children. The 
present number of inmates was 1,250, 300 of whom were girls. It was in 
no sense a prison, with bars and massive walls to encompass the children, 
but an institution where the children were made to feel that the managers 
and officers were their true friends,and where the rule was maintained al¬ 
most wholly by moral forces. The boys all learned trades, becoming type¬ 
setters, stereotypers, machinists, shoe-makers, tailors, carpenters, chair- 
makers, bakers, farmers, and gardeners. An account was kept with each 
boy and girl in the institution. Tlieofficers were careful to inculcate the 
idea that labor is a duty, and that it is ennobling, not degrading. They 
allowed inmates so much per month or week, according to their 
diligence. One boy had earned enough to bring his mother, three 
brothers, and a sister from Ireland to this country. Another had saved 
and invested $300 in land near the school, and the indications were that 
by the time the lad had reached his majority, his investment would 
yield him sufficient capital to enable him to start in business. Many 
other boys in the school had accumulated larger or smaller sums of 
money by their industry. In the shoe-making business, the institution 
was a small Lynn. The boys did jobs of printing for people outside, 
and the same with other trades carried on in the protectory. They had 
pigeon-holes, into which were put checks or tokens of good conduct; 
and the scholars, according to the number of these tokens, received 
small gifts; to the younger children were given toys; to the older, 
money. They allowed the well-behaved to roam in the adjoining woods, 
to bathe in the river, to row in boats, and to fish. In this way they 
endeavored to show the boys that they were their friends. They en¬ 
deavored to bend the twig aright, so that when the boy became a man, 
he would prove a good and useful citizen. The boys felt that their 
institution was a home. The protectory was a Roman Catholic institu 
tion, but it received Protestant boys and girls, and no restriction was 
placed upon their attending Protestant churches and Sunday schools, 
nor were any attempts made to induce them to embrace the Catholic 
faith. 

Mr. Develin said that there were more causes than one for congratu¬ 
lation on the meeting of this congress, but a principal cause was the 
common ground on which we could all stand, compare views, and work 
in harmony. It had been so in the Cincinnati and Loudon congresses, 
and it was so in this. Dr. Wines, an eminent American Protestant, 
and Dr. Manning, an eminent Catholic prelate of England, united in 
the one great and noble work of assisting the prisoner in his efforts to 
reform. We had hoped for the presence of the Catholic archbishop of 
this city, who had been invited to open one of the sessions of this con¬ 
gress with prayer; but he had been prevented by sickness, which had 
caused him to seek a healthier clime. 

Mr. Develin closed by inviting the members of the congress to visit 


472 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


the protectory. If they would come to the office, No. 29 Reade street, 
they would be conveyed to the institution by carriages. 

Mr. Pritchard, of Kentucky, in consideration of his being obliged to 
leave the city to-night, asked that the discussion on reformatory insti¬ 
tutions might be suspended at this point to enable him to introduce, 
and the congress to pass, a resolution condemning the system of leas¬ 
ing prisons to contractors. It was a question in which he felt a very 
deep interest, and he would be glad to be present when it was dis¬ 
cussed. It was explained by the president that when the subject came 
up for consideration to-morrow, the colleagues of Mr. Pritchard would 
be present, and would, no doubt, represent the public opiuion of Ken¬ 
tucky on this subject. After further conversation, Mr. Pritchard 
withdrew his request, and the discussion on reformatories was resumed. 

Mr. Talcott, of Rhode Island, said that he was from a small State, 
and was at the head of one of the smallest institutions for reform in 
the country. The work was a great one, and how to do it wisely and 
well was the question. To learn this he had come here; and while willing 
to give his own views, he hoped to hear from others who had had greater 
experience. He had two hundred children and youths in his institution, 
and thirty more placed in families in different parts of the State, whose 
names were on the roll. They were boarded out at $2 a week, and 
must be reported upon at least monthly. From one to two dollars a 
week were paid for their education. If the children staid three or 
four months in a family, arrangements were made for continuing them 
there. The discipline of the institution was parental, as much so as 
they knew how to make it. Some correction was occasionally neces¬ 
sary, and a little chastisement, administered in a right spirit, had a 
good effect. The special feature of the institution was that of a family- 
home. 

The Rev. Father Quinn, of New York, asked: u Do you have walls 
surrounding your reformatory!” 

Mr. Talcott replied that they had. 

Father Quinn. “ Is there any special feature in your institution 
wherein it differs from other reformatories ?” 

Mr. Talcott. u No, it is very much like other institutions, having 
the same end in view.” 

Rev. Mr. Sheldon, of New Jersey, superintendent of the reform school 
for boys at Jamesburgh, said that their plan embodied the family system 
as far as possible. Boys were sent to them up to twenty-one years of 
age. They had power to release any inmate at the end of a year, if 
they judged it expedient. They sought to infuse the stimulus of hope 
into the miudsof the boys. They had no encircling wall. They sought 
to get into the heart of the boy; they sympathized with him in his 
troubles, and so endeavored to hold him by the power of kindness. 
For the encouragement of fellow-laborers in this work, he would say 
that kindness had wrought wonders for them. It was the great power 
with which to mold these young hearts to virtue. It won their confi¬ 
dence and restored their self-respect, both of which were great elements 
in effecting their reformation. 

Mr. Shipley, of Ohio, thought that prevention was the great thing. 
He believed in compulsory education as an effective means to this end. 
There were parents who would not educate their children, but would 
sooner train them for crime and ruin. They had a law in Ohio by 
which they could take a child away from such parents, to the benefit of 
society and the salvation of the child. 


DISCUSSION ON REFORMATORY WORK. 473 

Judge Walker, of Michigau, asked: a How long have you had tills 
law, and what have been its results ? ” 

Mr. Shipley answered: “We have had the law four years, and it 
has worked well; many children have been rescued and placed in good 
homes with farmers.” 

Judge Walker : u Can children be taken away from parents without 
their consent V 7 

Mr. Shipley : u Yes. Our institution is i the house of refuge 7 for 
those worse than orphan children.” 

Mr. Milligan, of Western Pennsylvania, said that they had adopted 
in their prison almost all the reformatory measures that had been advo¬ 
cated in this congress, and they looked forward to a bright future of 
successful reformatory work. But he would like to hear discussed in 
this congress the criminal codes of the several States and their adminis¬ 
tration. He believed that there was more crime produced by defective 
laws and bad administration than was prevented or punished by them. 
Criminal laws and courts seemed to him a mighty machine for the 
manufacture of criminals. He favored indefinite sentences and graded 
prisons. Would they turn a person infected with the small-pox loose 
to spread the contagion ? That seemed to him quite as reasonable as it 
would be to release a prisoner infected with the leprosy of crime, which 
was worse than that of small-pox. 

Mr. Ames, of Massachusetts, desired to emphasize the views expressed 
by Mr. Shipley in favor of preventive measures. They had a law in 
Massachusetts like that of Ohio, by which children exposed to want 
and in danger of falling into crime could be taken from their parents, 
and thus preserved from matured criminality. That was prevention, 
which was better than cure. The lovers of humanity should awake and 
put forth every effort to save the crowds rushing to ruin, young women 
especially. Seventy-five per cent, of those rescued by this law from the 
criminal example and teaching of their parents, and from association 
with the vile, were saved. They should retain a supervision over such 
during their minority, kindly watching over them, getting them into 
good family-homes, and thus preparing them for the highest position that 
woman could occupy—that of wife and mother. He might be an enthu¬ 
siast, but he believed that hundreds and thousands of girls, now just 
commencing a course of crime and infamy, might be saved. A far 
greater number of institutions than now existed should be established 
in every State, both preventive and reformatory. 

Mr. Kockwood, of Utah, said that in 1853 an act was passed in that 
Territory, authorizing the probate judge to take any child, on presenta¬ 
tion of proper evidence that it needed care, and bind it out, at the dis¬ 
cretion of the court. He had known children who had been thus saved 
as brands from the burning. They could also bind out juvenile offend¬ 
ers that were found drunk on the streets; if claimed by responsible 
persons, they were surrendered ; but if there were no such to care for 
them, they bound them out. 

Dr. Wright, of Tennessee, read a report on the penitentiary system 
of his State. (For his report see p. 449.) 

No report having been sent in from Missouri, General Miner and Mr. 
Miller submitted a report prepared during the sessions of the congress, 
which, without being read, was placed on file. (For this report see p. 424.) 

General Miner, on behalf of the Missouri delegation, invited the con¬ 
gress to hold its next meeting in Saint Louis, and assured them of a 
hearty welcome. 

Adjourned till 10 to-morrow morning. 


474 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


FOURTH DAY—MORNING SESSION. 

Friday, January 24, 1873. 

The congress re-assembled at 10 a. m., pursuant to adjournment. 

In the absence of the president, Judge Walker, of Michigan, one of 
the vice-presidents, on invitation, took the chair. 

The Bev. J. L. Milligan, of Pennsylvania, opened the session with 
prayer. 

Mr. Miller, of Missouri, renewed the invitation to the congress to hold 
its next meeting in Saiut Louis, repeating the assurance of cordial wel¬ 
come by the city and the State, and adding, “ You need to see our people 
and our city; and we need to see and hear you, to receive the lessons 
you will give us, and to feel the quickening of your presence.” 

On motion, the invitation was accepted, with thanks. Subsequently 
in the day, a telegram was read from the Hon. Joseph Brown, mayor of 
Saint Louis, repeating the invitation, and promising the congress the 
heartiest of Missouri welcomes, which was received with much applause. 

Dr. Wines stated that the board of directors of the National Prison 
Association, at a meeting held in this city yesterday, had resolved to 
have these annual congresses in the spring, during the month of May 
or June, the exact date to be fixed according to circumstances, by the 
board, or its executive committee, and that the next meeting would, as 
a matter of course, take place in the spring of 1874. 

Dr. Wines further stated that the constitution of the national associ¬ 
ation provided that committees of correspondence should be formed in 
all the States at the earliest practicable moment, to co-operate with the 
association in pushing the work of prison reform in all its departments, 
but especially in the gathering of criminal, penitentiary, and reforma¬ 
tory statistics, and that he had been instructed by the board of direct¬ 
ors to invite the delegations from the several States to hand in to him 
the names of such persons as they judged competent and suitable to be 
placed upon the proposed committees. He further said that it was the 
judgment of the board that where boards of State charities or prison as¬ 
sociations exist, instead of forming new organizations they should be 
invited to co-operate with the national association in the manner and 
for the purpose indicated. 

On motion, it was ordered that the further reading of reports from 
States be dispensed with, and that reports not hitherto read be referred 
to the executive committee of the association for publication, either in 
full or epitomized form, in the transactions of this congress. 

Dr. Wines read a paper by Miss Carpenter, of England, on life-sen¬ 
tenced prisoners, at the conclusion of which he said that he much re¬ 
gretted that the pressure of business on this last day of the sessions 
of the congress was such as to forbid an extended consideration of the 
very important question treated by Miss Carpenter. The paper was 
able and suggestive, like everything that came from the pen of that 
distinguished philanthropist and writer. It presented many very strik¬ 
ing views, and though there was no time at present to consider and 
discuss them, the essay would be printed as a part of the proceedings, 
and would be as seed cast into the public mind and thought of the 
country and the world. (For Miss Carpenter’s paper seepage 348.) 

Mr. Shipley, of Ohio, chairman of the finance committee, and treas¬ 
urer of the congress, reported that $244 had been received, that all bills 
had been paid, and that there remained a surplus of $73.85. On motion 
of Mr. Griffith, of Maryland, it was ordered that the balance in the 
hands of treasurer be appropriated to the National Prison Association, 


DISCUSSION ON MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS. 475 

and it was accordingly handed over to the secretary, for transmission 
to the treasurer of the association. 

In the absence of Mr. Monfort and the other secretaries of the con¬ 
gress, General James L. Miner, of Missouri, was, by vote of the con¬ 
gress, invited to act as secretary in their place. 

Dr. Wines, on behalf of the special committee appointed to consider 
the expediency of petitioning Congress to make an appropriation in aid 
of the work of the National Prison Association, reported the draught 
of a memorial addressed to that body. 

General Eggleston, of Mississippi, and Mr. Vaux, of Pennsylvania, 
doubted the propriety of the action proposed. 

Governor Seymour, of New York, said that he was what was called a 
u States’ rights ” man, and that upon that point he agreed with the gen¬ 
tlemen who had preceded him. But there was one aspect of this case 
which took it out of the scope of their criticisms. The movement in 
which we were engaged was national, and even international. We were 
in fact a part of the congress which met in London last year. We acted, 
therefore, in a national relation. Criminal administration and prison 
discipline belonged to the National Government, as well as to the gov¬ 
ernments of the States, for the United States, equally with the individ¬ 
ual States, had its courts and its convicts. Besides, the District of Co¬ 
lumbia and the Territories were within our purview, and these were 
under the immediate jurisdiction of the National Government. And 
then, as he had said, this work was international, as well as national. 
The London Congress formed a permanent international commission, 
charged with the duty of organizing a plan for the collection of inter¬ 
national penitentiary statistics upon common principles, and according 
to common formulas ; and it was expected that all nations would co¬ 
operate in this work. Would the United States Government alone stand 
aloof from it ? He thought that the Government should not and would 
not decline co operation in an object at once so catholic and so impor¬ 
tant. 

The discussion was continued for some time, a number of delegates 
taking part therein. 

Governor Seymour resumed the chair, and Judge Walker moved that 
the report of the committee be adopted; that the president and secre¬ 
tary be authorized to sign the memorial; and that a committee of thir¬ 
teen, of which the president should be chairman, be appointed to 
present the memorial to Congress. 

The motion passed, and the following gentlemen were appointed on 
the committee: Hon. Horatio Seymour, of New York, chairman ; Hon. 
Bichard Yaux, of Pennsylvania; General J. L. Miner, of Missouri: 
General B. B. Eggleston, of Mississippi; Hon. 0.1. Walker, of Michi¬ 
gan ; Governor F. Smyth, of New Hampshire ; Hon. Edward Earle, of 
Massachusetts; Hon. B. K. White, of Kentucky; Hon. Isaac D. Jones, 
of Maryland; Murray Shipley, Esq., of Ohio; Professor W. F. Phelps, 
of Minnesota; Bev. H. W. Bellows, D. D., of New York; and Dr. E. 
G. Wines, of New York. 

Mrs. Bichardson, of Missouri, through Judge Walker, offered the fol¬ 
lowing resolution, which was unanimously carried, viz: 

Resolved, That the friends of prison reform be earnestly invited to 
show their interest in the cause by becoming members of the National 
Prison Association, and thus promote its usefulness and at the same 
time aid in the circulation of the works of that great statesman, jurist, 
and prison reformer, Edward Livingston. 


476 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Mrs. Richardson sent up $10 to constitute herself a member of the 
association, thus proving her faith by her works. 

Judge Walker, of the business committee, reported six resolutions on 
points which had been, in some form, referred to the said committee. 

For these propositions see further on, under the heading lt Resolutions 
adopted by the congress.” 

The first resolution, relating to the connection between intemperance 
and crime, the subject having been fully discussed yesterday, was car¬ 
ried unanimously. 

The second resolution, relating to the leasing of prisons, gave rise 
to an extended discussion. 

General Eggleston, of Mississippi, said that the u leasing system ” pre¬ 
vailed in his State, but worked badly. They found themselves imposed 
upon by the lessees. The men were overworked. There was constant 
friction between the State authorities and the lessees. The authorities 
insisted that the men should have wholesome and sufficient rations, and 
be suitably clad, kindly treated, and not overtasked. The lessees com¬ 
plained that such interference curtailed their profits, and would compel 
them to surrender their contract. He thought that when their new 
prison building was completed and they had room for all their convicts 
to work within the prison premises, the system would be definitely 
abandoned. 

Dr. Wright, of Tennessee, defended the system, as practised in his 
State. They retained control of the discipline and management of the 
prison. They did not for a moment lose sight of the interests of the 
convicts, whose reformation they earnestly sought. 

Mr. South, of Kentucky, said that he did not quite agree with the 
views of his colleague, Mr. Pritchard. He defended the system in part, 
and commended the humanity of the late lessee, Captain Todd. 

Judge Walker, of Michigan, said that there seemed to be some diffi¬ 
culty or misunderstanding, which he thought grew out of the term 
“leasing.” He thought the word “ contracting” would be preferable. 
There was a prejudice against leasing, but in all the States there was 
something of the contract principle and practice. The term “leasing ” 
conveyed different ideas to different minds. 

Governor Seymour supposed leasing and contracting to be very much 
the same thing. 

Dr. Wines, of New York, said that, with all deference to the two 
eminent gentlemen who had last addressed the congress, he conceived 
that there was a material difference between the leasing system and the 
contract system, and, although he did not like the latter, he considered 
the former greatly more objectionable. Under the contract system, the 
labor only of the convict was hired out; while the whole care of the 
prisoners, the discipline, the clothing, the bedding, the food, the medical 
attendance, the religious and secular instruction, the hours of labor, 
&c., were retained in the hands of the authorities. But, under the 
leasing system, all this was changed. The whole control and manage¬ 
ment of the prison, including the material and moral interests of the 
prisoners, were turned over to the lessee, who was sometimes an indi¬ 
vidual and sometimes a business company ; but always a party whose 
sole object was to grow rich, first out of what the convicts could earn, 
and next out of what could be saved from the cost of feeding, clothing, 
and housing them. The prison was let, as he understood it, for a term 
of years, to the party who offered the highest bonus to the State, over 
and above the keep and care of the prisoners. Other considerations 
might possibly come in, but this was the main and controlling one. He 


DISCUSSION ON SYSTEM OF LEASING PRISONS. 


477 


looked upon it as a system objectionable to the last degree. It was the 
same system against which John Howard, a hundred years ago, lifted 
up his voice and employed his pen. That was the English system of his 
day. He had had some opportunity of learning the state of public opinion 
in some of the States where the system had been tried in this country. He 
first met the system in Illinois in 1865, where he found public sentiment 
unanimous, or nearly so, against it; and a year or two later it was 
crushed out. He next went to Missouri, where the system had previously 
existed, but public opinion had destroyed it. He then passed over to 
Kentucky, where the system was then and is still in vogue. But even 
there those most closely connected with it—the prison inspectors, forex- 
ample—were against it. One of them pronounced it, in his judgment, the 
worst system that human ingenuity could devise. He admitted, and 
was glad to admit, that Captain Todd, who was at that time the lessee, 
was a humane and just man, and he had proved his disinterestedness, 
as well as the breadth of his views and the elevation of his character, 
by advocating a policy which no doubt would have taken thousands of 
dollars annually out of his pocket, that is to say, the creation of a prison 
for juvenile offenders, which would have removed fifty to a hundred 
young men from his institution, and deprived him of the profit of 
their labor. He believed that Captain Todd had acted justly and honor¬ 
ably by the convicts, but the account he had received of the conduct of 
previous lessees—some, not all—was quite different. It was the principle 
of the plan to which he objected. It was too liable to abuse, and the 
temptation to abuse was too strong. In the millennium it might do, if 
there were any prisons then; but in the present condition of human 
nature, he believed the system radically and incurably vicious. 

Mr. White, of Kentucky, agreed with Hr. Wines. He did not ask 
the congress to pass judgment upon his State, but he wanted to settle 
a principle of prison treatment. Indiana had once tried this system; 
but she found that while it enriched the contractor it fobbed the peo¬ 
ple and demoralized the prisoner. 

Colonel Burr, of Ohio, said that though they contracted the labor of 
their prisoners, they retained complete control of them. A contractor 
could not even speak to a prisoner, except to tell him what to do, and 
he (Colonel B.) had the power, on the least interference of a con¬ 
tractor, to dismiss him and forbid his return to the prison; and more 
than once he had exercised that power. But leasing a penitentiary, 
with the power of control over the convicts vested in the lessee, was a 
different matter. That was going back to the dark ages of prison dis¬ 
cipline. 

The Bev. Mr. Woodbury, of Bhode Island, said that public opinion 
controlled prison systems as it did everything else. As a congress we 
could only suggest reforms and then leave the States to decide for 
themselves. 

Hr. Wines asked Mr. Woodbury whether the contractor in the Bhode 
Island prison did not agree to employ discharged convicts in his factory 
outside. 

Mr. Woodbury replied that there was no stipulation of that kind in 
the contract; but there was an understanding to that effect and an 
obligation of honor for them to do so. 

Colonel Burr said that this was, to a considerable extent, the case in 
Ohio. 

Mr. Miller, of Missouri, expressed his detestation of the leasing sys¬ 
tem where the lessee had control of the prisoners. Where the State 
had control it was better; but he would prefer to have the State work 


478 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


the men. It might do so through a competent agent as well as a 
contractor could. Mere money-making should not be a consideration. 
It was wrong to put prisoners into the hands of men whose sole aim 
was to enrich themselves out of their toil. It was the worst kind of 
slavery. 

Mr. Woodbury said that a practical difficulty would be the capital. 
Where should that be obtained ? 

Mr. Griffith, of Maryland, without at all favoring the system of leasing, 
claimed that that of letting the labor on contract worked well in the 
Maryland penitentiary. The board had entire control. 

The resolution was then adopted. 

Judge Walker read the third resolution, relating to accused but 
untried prisoners 5 and the fourth relating to the aiding of discharged 
convicts, which were considered together. 

The Rev. Mr. Doll, of Maryland, agent of the Prisoners’ Aid Society, 
said that his society did something in the way of looking after the 
arrested, as well as in aid of those released from prison. Their associ¬ 
ation was but three years old, yet 581 prisoners had been discharged by 
the courts through his intervention. The facts collected by his investi¬ 
gations had convinced the judges either that they were innocent or that 
the charges against them were too trivial for grave, judicial proceedings. 
Eleven hundred and sixty-five had been aided with money; three 
hundred and forty-nine had had steady places provided for them, and 
two hundred and eighty-eight had been furnished with temporary em¬ 
ployment. His own house had been for the last twelve months turned 
into a refuge for discharged female prisoners, and he would soon have 
to ask the people of Baltimore to provide a home for such, for the num¬ 
ber was becoming too great for his limited accommodations. God had 
given him a large-hearted, noble helpmate in his wife. Fifteen poor 
creatures wer^ then in his house, who but a short time ago were 
within the walls of the penitentiary. Fourteen of them were colored 
girls. And these poor creatures had made his house a Nanking 
liouse for their savings. He begged pardon for his warmth in this 
matter. I feel (said he) that I have a greater responsibility resting upon 
me than when I was ordained by the bishop, in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, to what would be called a higher order of the ministry. O! sir, 
we want a prison ministry. I say to my brethren in the ministry, we must 
come down from our pulpits and minister to them that are in prison. 
A poor girl rescued from the whirlpool of prostitution and received 
into our home until we found her a place of employment has visited us 
a dozen times since, bringing small presents to testify her gratitude. 
She has recently been restored to her father’s house, in Virginia. No 
prisoners’ aid association is complete without a prison agent connected 
with it. We took charge of three poor girls a short time since that but 
for our aid society would have speedily rushed to ruin. Now they are 
saved, and are in membership with the church. We are but doing the 
Master’s work when we thus go down and seek to save the lost. Mr. 
President, I suppose that my time is very limited ; but I wish to use it 
all in pleading especially for the poor children needing our sympathy 
and aid. For them I could stand and plead until the going down of the 
sun. 

Mr. Merrefield said that prison reform in Baltimore owed much to 
Mrs. Doll for the success attained through the labors of her husband. 

Mr. Griffith related several telling incidents connected with this work 
in Baltimore. He said that the most faithful porter he ever had in his 
store was a discharged convict. 


DISCUSSION ON RESOULTION RELATING TO REFORMATORIES. 479 

The resolutions were carried. 

Judge Walker next read the fifth resolution, relating to the necessity 
of vigorous effort to improve the administration of existing prison sys¬ 
tems. 

In doing so, he said that the States did not, as a general thing, pay 
salary enough to secure and retain good men as wardens and keepers. 
The very best men were needed for the duties required. 

The Rev. Mr. Milligan, of Pennsylvania, thought the resolution a 
very wise one. The idea was not to interfere with special systems, but 
to stir up all to work, on their own plans, in the best and most effective 
manner. 

Mr. Coates, of Pennsylvania, said that that was the true idea. Let 
each follow his own chosen and well considered way, and “ by their 
fruits shall ye know them.” 

The resolution was adopted. 

Recess until 7 p. m. 

EVENING SESSION. 

The congress re-assembled at the hour named, Mr. Vaux in the chair. 

Judge Walker read a letter from Alfred H. Love, of Philadelphia, 
apologizing for his absence from the meeting, expressing his sympathy 
in its objects, and giving his views at some length on the subject of 
prison discipline. (For Mr. Love’s paper see page 374.) 

Dr. Wines submitted a similar though shorter letter from Dr. Aiken, 
of Wilmington, Delaware, apologizing for his absence. He had lost 
his wife, and the funeral took place during the meeting of the congress. 

Dr. Wines also read a short letter from Rev. C. C. Foote, late chap¬ 
lain of the Detroit House of Correction. (For Mr. Foote’s letter see 
page 374.) 

He further submitted a letter received sometime ago from Hon. B. F. 
Butler. (For said letter see p. 369.) 

Governor Seymour took the chair at this point, and announced the 
committee of thirteen on the memorial to be presented to Congress. 
The names of the gentlemen constituting the committee have already 
been given. 

Judge Walker read the sixth resolution, relating to reformatories. 

Dr. Hatch, of Connecticut, said that we had the boys, and the ques¬ 
tion was, What kind of citizens shall they be? We needed good citi¬ 
zens, and such came from good homes. He approved of compulsory 
education, and hoped for its general adoption. If the chlidren were 
rightly educated, we would not need either penal or reformatory institu¬ 
tions. He questioned the necessity of such a resolution; it was but 
the alphabet; we were beyond that. Let us have warm hearts to 
receive the children kindly. Of course we would pass the resolution ; 
but we were already getting beyond it. 

Dr. Wines reminded Dr. Hatch that if Connecticut was beyond it, 
Texas was not; nor Arkansas; nor Oregon ; nor a half score of other 
States. 

Mr. Bigham, of Western Pennsylvania, said that since the Cincinnati 
Congress they had been considering the question of changing their in¬ 
stitution—the Western House of Refuge—and had concluded to adopt 
the family plan instead of the congregate, formerly in use. They were 
going out some miles into the country. It would take them two years, 
probably, to complete their new buildings, and then they meant to have 
the model reform school of the country. 

Mr. Coates favored teaching these boys trades. Skilled workmen 


480 NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 

were becoming scarce, and were greatly needed. The reformatories 
might aid in supplying this want. 

Mr. Shipley, of Ohio, said that the members of the convention some¬ 
times lost sight of the main point. It was not so much, how can we cure 
the convicts and have them become good men, as how can we prevent the 
children from becoming convicts ? Compulsory education was good, but 
it alone would not keep boys from growing up into criminals. We must 
adapt our schools to the circumstances and wants of the children. There 
were a great many agencies. Among them he was pleased to see the 
feature in the New York Catholic Protectory, referred to by Mr. Develin, 
that of giving rewards to little boys. He admired that plan. They had 
established a school in Cincinnati, and they provided a warm dinner for 
the needy children that attended it. They took 150 children from the 
street, and fed, taught, and saved them. They had their private visi¬ 
tor, whose business it was to find aud bring them to the school; and after 
they had interested them in learning, they transferred them, if possible, 
to the public schools. They tried to act on the principle of the patriarch 
Job : u The cause which I knew not, I searched out.” 

Mr. Yaux, of Pennsylvania, believed that the old Greeks used to pray 
that the gods would endow us with the eloquence of silence. He felt 
the need of that prayer. He had been appealed to, quoted, unkindly 
criticised, and kindly laughed at, by some of the members of that con¬ 
gress. He had tried to bear it all as well as he could, and kept on 
praying as did the Greeks. But the time had come when it became 
necessary for him to say a single word in defense of his views. It had 
been said, u there is no partisauship in what is spoken here. We are 
all met to devise means to advance the cause of reform.” However that 
might be, he would say, God bless the work. They should lay down gen¬ 
eral principles, and not go too much into particular measures. Some 
had praised Christianity. That was right; but they had given a slap 
at the individual system of treating convicts. 

The Pennsylvania system had been discussed, while it was not under- 
vStood by five gentlemen out of the State. The phrase u solitary confine¬ 
ment ” had been used and applied to it. Miss Gilbert so characterized 
it, and asked, “Would you hang a Christian*?” Yes, he would hang 
forty u Christians,” if they broke the law and were found guilty. The 
Pennsylvania system should be spoken of as the separate or individual 
system. Howard did not commence visiting British prisons until long 
after Pennsylvania had reformed abuses in the indiscriminate, or rather 
no system, which then prevailed. To Pennsylvania belonged the praise 
of moving first in this reform. The best paper read in that congress on 
the prison question was that of Dr. Despine, of France. Until you ele¬ 
vate this reform to a science, you are running after vagaries. You 
must study and know the criminal himself. Such knowledge was the 
basis of all right prison treatment. You cannot reform criminals by 
merely putting them into prison, nor prevent crime by putting boys into 
reformatories. You most find out what are the causes, aud adapt your 
treatment to them. That is the problem; that strikes at the root of the 
matter. All else is but playing with the surface. You must look at 
principles, not mere details. You must look at the question as states¬ 
men, not as politicians. Politics must be eliminated from prisons and 
prison management. 

The president asked Mr. Yaux whether in Pennsylvania the prison¬ 
ers were kept separate, or were allowed to receive visits. 

Mr. Yaux said that they were separated from each other, but not from 
the world. 


VALEDICTORY ADDRESSES. 


481 


The Rev. Mr. Bradford, of Connecticut, said that the great question 
was how to care for the young in the reformatory, how to save them 
from becoming criminals. They should take care of the girls in peril of 
hilling. Save them, and society was saved. They had in Connecticut 
the model school. They were ahead of Massachusetts. They had had 
remarkable instances of reformation, of which he gave several interest¬ 
ing illustrations. They had no bars and bolts more than in private 
houses. As regarded labor, the girls Were engaged in making paper 
boxes, and ten per cent, of the money earned belonged to themselves. 
Some had saved $75 or $100. This was a great stimulus; it put hope 
into them, without which none of us could accomplish much. 

The resolution was then agreed to unanimously. 

On motion, the cordial thanks of the congress were tendered to the 
Prisoners’ Aid Association of Maryland for the abundant labor expend¬ 
ed in preparation for this meeting; to the citizens of Baltimore, for 
courtesies and hospitalities; to the band of the House of Refuge for 
the excellent music with which they entertained the congress at its 
opening session; to Mr. Raine for a liberal reduction on the rent of his 
beautiful and commodious hall; to railroad companies and proprietors 
of hotels for reduction of fares and board; to the reporters of the asso¬ 
ciated press and the Baltimore journals for their services in making 
known the doings of the congress; to the Rev. Wm. H. Tilfany, who 
kindly rendered his service as official reporter to the body without 
charge; to the Young Men’s Christian Association and the managers 
of the numerous penal, reformatory, and charitable institutions of Balti¬ 
more and vicinity for invitations to visit and inspect the establishments 
under their care; and to the Hon. Michael C. Kerr, a member of the 
Congress of the United States from the State of Indiana, and of this 
body by appointment of the executive of that State, for his eloquent 
and instructive address, delivered on the evening of the 21st instant. 

Dr. Wines moved the following : 

This congress, while expressing its gratitude for the valuable reports 
and papers furnished by writers, at home and abroad, cannot assume 
responsibility for every sentiment and utterance contained in them. It 
holds itself responsible only for the principles and acts sanctioned by a 
formal vote. 

Dr. Hatch rose and said: The business of this congress is concluded. 
I hope we shall now, for a few moments, resolve ourselves into a mutual 
admiration society, have a good time, and shake hands all round. I 
love sharp men, [looking at'Mr. Vaux;] they bring out points more dis¬ 
tinctly. 

Mr^Vaux reciprocated the kindly feeling. 

Dr. Hatch continued: We shall go home refreshed, prepared to work 
with warmer hearts and a more earnest zeal. We are satisfied that the 
great thing is, to have the right kind of men in charge of our prisons 
and reformatories. It is not the separate, or the associated, or the fam¬ 
ily system that will do the work; but good men, earnest men, men 
working in the right spirit. Thus acting, we shall advance in our great 
reform; and when we meet next year, in Saint Louis, brothers Yaux 
and Milligan and all being there, we will renew friendships, compare 
notes, exchange congratulations, and move onward with equal tread in 
the march of improvement. 

Mr. White, of Kentucky, expressed his pleasure at seeing his own 
opinion so fully represented in this congress. Once the cry was, save 
the criminal; now the better idea is, to preserve from crime. The 
friends of this movement will hear of our doings, and take courage. 


H. Ex. 185-31 



482 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Mr. Talcott expressed much satisfaction with what he had seen, heard, 
and felt since he came to Baltimore. He believed that in this warfare 
upon crime we should prevail, relying for the victory on Him 11 to whom 
belong the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.’ 7 

Dr. Wines said: I do not rise, Mr. President, to make a speech, but 
to give, in few words, an account of my stewardship*. It is just twenty- 
seven months since the Cincinnati congress met, at which meeting it 
was voted, with absolute unanimity, that an international congress 
should be convened. Cincinnati asked me to undertake the organization 
of that movement. It was impossible to answer so grave a proposition 
on the spur of the moment. All I could then do was to promise to con¬ 
sider it, venturing, however, to add, that in case I concluded to accept 
the honor and the labor, if there did not, in 1872, assemble in London a 
congress composed of five hundred delegates, coming from the very ends 
of the earth, it should not be for the want of work put forth to accom¬ 
plish that result. Well, the congress met in London last July. More 
than four hundred delegates were present. Every state in Europe, ex¬ 
cept Portugal, was officially represented. Our own Government, Mexico, 
several of the South American States, the West India Islands, Bengal, 
Ceylon, Australia, Japan, Hong-Kong, and most of the States of our 
own Union, had delegates there. It was an able body, equipped and 
ripe for the work in hand. And notwithstanding these four hundred and 
odd representative men and women came from so many and such widely 
distant regions, differing in nationalities, speech, institutions, usages, 
ideas, and manners, yet, after ten days of mutual conference and consulta¬ 
tion, they were able to agree, unanimously, upon a declaration of prin¬ 
ciples of prison discipline, which was substantially an echo of the 
declaration made at Cincinnati. Surely, u the Divinity that shapes our 
ends ” never stood more conspicuously revealed than in such an issue 
under such circumstances. I have been permitted to see all this, and to 
return to commit the result of the work which you gave into my hands 
to your judgment and kindness. 

Colonel Burr, of Ohio. The congress can only say, u Well done, good 
and faithful servant.” 

Judge Walker moved a special vote of thanks to the Hon. Horatio 
Seymour for the ability, dignity, and courtesy with which he has per¬ 
formed the duties of the chair; and to Dr. Wines for his faithful, devoted, 
and successful services in the cause of prison reform. 

In making this motion, Mr. Walker said: Ladies and gentlemen, we 
have all been charmed by the diginity, urbanity, and wisdom of our 
president in his official relations to this body, and with the clearness, 
power, and eloquence of his utterances, whenever he has favored the 
congress by taking part in its discussions. As to the corresponding 
secretary, we are so much indebted to his labors that language utterly 
fails in attempting to express our obligations to him. Except for his 
labors, the Cincinnati congress would not have assembled; nor the 
international congress have been held in London; nor the present con¬ 
gress have convened in Baltimore ; nor the work of prison reform have 
gained such an impetus in this and other countries. If any man living, 
he surely may be congratulated on having accomplished something 
for the amelioration of his race. 

A few words in relation to this gathering: I came here not as an expert; 
I had had a little experience, and had given some attention to the sub¬ 
ject. But I came to learn, not to teach. I have enjoyed this congress; 
have felt it to be good to be here, among men so unselfish. It does us 
all good to meet with such men. I have known something of Baltimore, 


VALEDICTORY ADDRESSES. 


483 


but I was not prepared to see its advanced condition in relation to the 
great works of Christian charity. Brother Doll, to-day, indicated some¬ 
thing very promising. God speed you in this great work for truth and 
humanity. Another thing: we have no Friends in my neighborhood in 
Michigan. But I have Quaker blood in my veins, and have attended 
many a silent meeting. I am glad to see some of the “ Friends ” here, 
aiding the good cause, in the spirit of the great Master. 

He called for the vote on the resolution of thanks to the president 
and corresponding secretary. 

Carried by acclamation. 

Mr. Merrefield thanked Mr. Walker for his kindly greetings to his 
Quaker “ Friends,” and heartily reciprocated them in their name as well 
as his own. 

Dr. Wines bowed his thanks, simply remarking that this more than 
paid for all the service he had rendered. 

Governor Seymour said: I am deeply grateful for this kind expression 
of your feeling. My claims to your gratitude are light indeed compared 
to those of Dr. Wines. There have been features connected with this 
convention very peculiar. Generally men meet to carry out their special 
views. We met as strangers, with all shades of sentiment. Yet, with 
abundant sources of difference, we have gone through our deliberations 
in harmony. We have received the ideas of others with respect; we have 
advanced our own without arrogance or dogmatism. I think we may 
say that there is something in the very cause we are engaged in which 
has produced this concord and consideration for each other. We may 
not have accomplished all we desired and hoped for the good of those 
within prison walls ; but we part with kinder feelings than those with 
which we came together. It is sad to think that many of us have met 
for the last time. It is my wish and hope that we may all go to our homes 
in safety; and that we may be successful in doing something to advance 
virtue, wisdom, reform, and happiness in society. 

The president then declared this congress dissolved, and announced 
that another congress, similar in character, would convene in the city 
of Saint Louis in the spring of 1874. 


YI.—RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE CONGEESS. 

As the National Congress of Cincinnati, in 1870, adopted a comprehen¬ 
sive declaration of principles of prison discipline, and the International 
Congress of London, in 1872, re affirmed, substantially, though in a con¬ 
densed form, the same platform, it was judged by the Congress of Balti¬ 
more unnecessary to formally go over the ground again in 1873. Never¬ 
theless, in the course of the proceedings, several members introduced 
resolutions relating to special points connected with penitentiary or re¬ 
formatory work. These were referred, as introduced, to the business 
committee, which, on the last day of the session, reported them back, 
in a form more or less modified, for the action of the congress. The 
greater part of the last day’s session was devoted to a consideration of 
the questions raised by the resolutions, which, after having been 
variouslv amended, were adopted, and are as follows: 

I. Whereas , it is fully established by incontestable facts that intem¬ 
perance in the use of intoxicating liquors is one of the principal incite¬ 
ments to crime, as well as a chief cause of pauperism j and whereas , it 



484 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


follows that in proportion as intemperance is suppressed, crime and its 
terrible consequences will be prevented: Therefore, 

Resolved , That this congress will welcome and encourage any wise 
and efficient measures for the suppression of this great evil, whether by 
an appeal to moral and religious principle, by voluntary effort, by legis¬ 
lative action, or by the enforcement of existing laws. 

II. Resolved , That the best interests of prison discipline demand that 
the governments controlling prisons, whether state or municipal, should, 
through their officers, have the entire control of the prisoners, both as to 
their hours of work and their treatment; and that any system of leasing 
or of contract that does not secure this, can but be injurious to the best 
interests of both the prisoners and the public. 

III. Resolved , That prisoners’ aid societies and other like associations 
to befriend discharged prisoners and to assist them in procuring homes 
and employment, have proved most effective as an auxiliary in the 
reformatory work, and that the organization of such societies, where 
they do not exist, is most cordially recommended, and urged as a duty 
upon the friends of prison reform. 

IY. Resolved , That the great success which has attended the efforf 
wherever made, and especially in Philadelphia, as shown by the papet 
of Mr. Mullen, for the protection of persons charged with a violation or 
law, by a careful investigation in each case before trial by a disinterested 
agent appointed for that purpose, fully authorizes this congress to 
recommend the establishment of such an agency in each State, and 
especially in each large city, where, from the great number of such 
charges and the haste with which many of them are disposed of, there 
is danger that innocent persons may often be convicted of otfenses 
WTongfully charged upon them. 

Y. Whereas , in the present state of prison reform it is.impossible to 
determine, either with precision or unanimity, upon an ideal system of 
prison discipline ; and tchereas. if that were possible, radical changes in 
existing institutions and their mode of administration would require 
much time and great effort in their accomplishment: Therefore, 

Resolved , That it becomes a matter of vital importance that the friends 
of prison reform should make prompt, vigorous, and steadily persistent 
efforts for the improvement of prisons as they actually exist and are 
administered, and especially that they should seek to educate the public 
mind as to the importance of elevating the character of the service en¬ 
gaged in their administration, and the great necessity of securing for 
each service men of the highest moral and intellectual character, by 
providing a liberal compensation therefor, and by making the employ¬ 
ment entirely independent of partisan influence, and also that they 
should, by every wise and practicable effort, seek to show both the im¬ 
portance and the possibility of making our prisons thoroughly reforma¬ 
tory in their character. 

VI. Resolved , That experience has demonstrated that juvenile reform¬ 
atories, houses of refuge and protection, and industrial schools for the 
training of neglected, vagrant, erring, and viciously inclined youths are 
among the most effective means yet devised for the saving of such youths 
from a life of crime; and that it is essential to the highest success of 
such institutions that they should not, either in theory or in fact, be or 
be considered as penal in their character, but rather as temporary homes 
for their inmates, whose treatment should approximate as nearly as pos¬ 
sible to the parental system. 




OFFICERS—BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 


485 


VII.—THE NATIONAL PRISON ASSOCIATION OF THE 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

1.—Officers of the association for 1S73. 

President .—Hon. Horatio Seymour, Utica, New York. 

Vice-Presidents.— Hon. James G. Blaine, Speaker United States House 
of Representatives, Augusta, Maine; Hon. Daniel Haines, Hamburgh, 
New Jersey; Henry W. Bellows, D. D., 232 East Fifteenth street, New 
Aork; General Amos Pilsbury, Superintendent Albany Penitentiary, 
Albany, New York; Hon. Conrad Baker, Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Treasurer.— Salem H. Wales, 520 Fifth avenue, New York. 

Corresponding Secretary. —E. C. Wines, D. D., LL.D.; office 320 Broad 
way; residence, Irvington, New York. 

Recording Secretary. —Bradford K. Peirce, D.D., Editor Zion’s Herald, 
Boston, Massachusetts. 

2.—Board of directors. 

Samuel Allinson, Yardville, New Jersey. 

William H. Aspinwall, 33 University Place, New York. 

Hon. Conrad Baker, Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Henry W. Bellows, D. D., 232 East Fifteenth street, New York. 

Hon. James G. Blaine, Speaker United States House of Representa¬ 
tives, Augusta, Maine. 

Rev. Charles L. Brace, secretary Children’s Aid Society, 19 East 
Fourth street, New York. 

Z. R. Brockway, Superintendent Detroit House of Correction, Detroit, 
Michigan. • 

James Brown, esq., 38 East Thirty-seventh street, New York. 

Charles F. Coffin, president board of directors, House of Refuge, Rich¬ 
mond, Indiana. 

Hon. John E. Develin, New York. 

Hon. Theodore W. Dwight, LL. 1)., President Columbia College Law 
School, 37 Lafayette Place, New York. 

G. S. Griffith, Baltimore, Maryland. 

Hon. Daniel Haines, Hamburgh, New Jersey. 

E. W. Hatch, M. D., Superintendent State Reform School, West Meri¬ 
den, Connecticut. 

Hon. R. B. Hays, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Morris K. Jesup, 59 Liberty street, New York. 

John Taylor Johnston, 119 Liberty street, New York. 

A. J. Ourt, M. D., corresponding secretary board of public charities, 
737 Walnut street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

B. K. Peirce, D. D., Editor Zion’s Herald, Boston, Massachusetts. 

General Amos Pilsbury, Superintendent Albany Penitentiary, Albany, 

New York. 

F. B. Sanborn, Editor, Concord, Massachusetts. 

Hon. Horatio Seymour, Utica, New York. 

Hon. L. Stanford, Sacramento, California. 

Oliver S. Strong, president board of managers New York House of 
Refuge, 61 Bible House, New York. 

Salem H. Wales, 520 Fifth avenue. 

Hon. and Rev. G. William Welker, Goldsborough, North Carolina. 

A. R. Wetmore, president board of managers New York Juvenile 
Asylum, 365 Greenwich street, New York. 


486 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF J873. 


Hon. R. K. White, Louisville, Kentucky. 

John E. Williams, President Metropolitan National Bank, 108 
Broadway, New York. 

E. G. Wines, D. D., LL. D., 320 Broadway, New York. 

3.—Standing committees. 

1 . Executive committee. —The president, H. Seymour; treasurer, S. 
H. Whales, and secretary, E. C. Wines, ex officio ; H. W. Bellows, Rev. 
Charles L. Brace, John E. Develin, and James Brown. 

2. Committee on criminal-law reform. —H. Seymour, Daniel Haines, 
Conrad Baker, James G. Blaine, Theodore W. Dwight, R. B. Hayes. 

3. Committee on prison discipline. —F. B. Sanborn, Z. R. Brockway, 
Amos Pilsbury, A. J. Ourt, G. William Welker. 

4. Committee on juvinile delinquency. —B. K. Peirce, C. L. Brace, O. S. 
Strong, E. W. Hatch, A. R. Wetmore. 

5. Committee on discharged prisoners. —Daniel Haines, Samuel Allinson, 
Charles Coffin, R. K. White, G. S. Griffith. 

4.— Corresponding members. 

Miss Mary Carpenter, Red Lodge Reformatory, Bristol, England. 

Miss Florence Nightingale, South street, London, England. 

Right Hon. Sir Walter Crofton, C. B., Hillingdon, Uxbridge, England. 

Frederic Hill, esq., 27 Thurlow Road, Hampstead, London, England. 

Edwin Hill, esq., No. 1 Saint Mark’s Square, Regent’s Park, London, 
England. 

Miss Florence Hill, Bristol, England. 

Miss Joanna Margaret Hill, Birmingham, England. 

Alfred Aspland, esq., Dukenfleld, Ashton-under-Lyne, England. 

William Tallack, esq., No. 5 Bishopsgate street, Without, London, 
England. 

Charles Ford, esq., 24 New street, Spring Gardens, London, England. 

Rev. Sydney Turner, inspector of reformatories, 15 Parliament street, 
London, England. 

W. L. Sargant, esq., Birmingham, England. 

Edwin Chadwick, esq., C. B. Mortlake, England. 

A. Angus Croll, esq., Granard Park, Putney, England. 

Miss Frances Power Cobbe, 26 Hereford Square, London, England. 

George W. Hastings, esq., 1 Adam street, Adelphi, London, Eng¬ 
land. 

T. B. LI. Baker, Hardwieke Court, Gloucester, England. 

T. L. Murray Browne, esq., No. 4 Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn, London, 
England. 

Edwin Pears, esq., Secretary of British Social Science Association, 
No. 1 Adam street, Adelphi, London, England. 

Major E. F. DuCane, surveyor-general of prisons, No. 44 Parliament 
street, London, England. 

John Lentaigne, esq., inspector of county and borough jails, Dublin, 
Ireland. 

Captain J. Barlow, director of convict prisons, Dublin, Ireland. 

M. Bonneville de Marsangy, 7 rue Penthievre, Paris, France. 

M. Victor Bournat, 20 rue Jacob, Paris, France. 

M. Robin, (pasteur,) 21 rue Piat, Belleville, Paris, France. 


CORRESPONDING MEMBERS-LIFE-DIRECTORS-LIFE-MEMBERS. 487 


M. J. Jaillant, director of prisoners, ministry of the interior, Paris, 
France. 

M. Jules de Lamarque, chief of bureau, direction of prisons, Paris, 
France. 

Dr. Prosper Despine, 12 rue du Loisir, Marseilles, France. 

M. Charles Lucas, member of the Institute, Paris, France. 

M. le Yicompt d : Haussonville, member of the national assembly, rue 
St. Dominique, Paris, France. 

M. Auguste Demetz, 92 rue de la Yictoire, Paris, France. 

M. Berdeu, administrator of prisons, Brussels, Belgium. 

M. J. Stevens, inspector-general of prisons, Brussels, Belgium. 

M. Auguste Yisschers, 106 rue Boyale, Brussels, Belgium. 

Mr. Alstorphius Grevelink, the Hague, Netherlands. 

Rev. Dr. Laurillard, secretary of the Netherlands Prison Society, 
Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

Mr. B. J. Ploos Yon Amstel, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

Dr. Guillaume, director of the penitentiary, Neufchatel, Switzerland. 
Mr. Max Wirtli, chief of the statistical bureau, Berne, Switzerland. 
Signor F. Cardon, director-general of prisons, Rome, Italy. 

Signor Mar. Bettrani-Scalia, inspector-general of prisons, Rome, Italy. 
Baron Franz von Holtzendorff, professor of law in the University of 
Berlin, Berlin, Prussia. 

Rev. Dr. Wichern, director of the Rauhe Haus, Horn, near Hamburg, 
Germany. 

Mr. Fr. Bruiin, director of prisons, Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Senhor Andre Fleury, secretary of the committee of inspection of the 
house of correction, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

5. —Life directors by the contribution of two hundred dol¬ 
lars OR UPWARD, AT ONE TIME, TO THE FUNDS OF THE ASSOCIA¬ 
TION. 

Timothy M. Allyn, Hartford, Connecticut. 

James Brown, New York. 

Morris K. Jesup, New York. 

W. Soldatenkoff, St. Petersburg, Russia. 

E. C. Wines, New York. 

6. —Life members by the contribution of one hundred dol¬ 

lars OR UPWARD AT ONE TIME. 

Horatio Seymour, Utica, New York. 

William H. Aspinwall, New York. 

W. Amory, Boston, Massachusetts. 

H. K. Corning, New York. 

D. Denny, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Edward Earle, Worcester, Massachusetts. 

George B. Emerson, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Mrs. Mary A. Holden, Providence, Rhode Island. 

Joseph Howland, Matteawan, New York. 

John Taylor Johnston, New York. 

Amos Pilsbury, Albany, New York. 

Jonathan Sturges, New York. 

N. Thayer, Boston, Massachusetts. 

C. H. Shipman, Brooklyn, New York. 

B. G. Clarke, New York. 

Miss M. W. Wills, Hartford, Connecticut. 


488 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


7.—Treasurer’s report for two years. 

The National Prison Association in account with S. H. Wales, treasurei 

Cr. 

April 30,1873. By amount of donations from May, 1871, to May, 1873. $7,068 85 

amount of appropriation by United States Congress- 5,000 00 

loan...... 4,925 00 


16,993 85 


Dr. 

April 30,1873. To cash paid for expenses connected with the International 

Penitentiary Congress and for salaries. $15, 000 00 

office expenses, including rent, fuel, light, attendance, &c. 808 00 

cash paid for printing and expenses connected with two 

annual reports. 594 26 

cash paid for stationery. 64 04 

cash paid for postage, telegraphing, and expressage- 264 43 

cash paid for office-furniture. 141 97 

cash paid for traveling expenses. 105 25 

cash paid miscellaneous expenses. 14 80 

balance to new account. 85 


16,993 85 


E. E. 

8.—Contributions to the National Prison Association from: 

May, 1871, to May, 1S73. 

California. 

Mrs. L. Hutchison, Bishop Creek. $10 

Connecticut. 

Timothy M. Allyn, Hartford. $500 

James E. English, New Haven. 25 

R. S. Fellowes, New Haven. 20 

Rev. Thos. K. Fessenden, Farmington. 20 

Miss M. W. Wells, Hartford. 125 

Rev. Geo. Wooding, Wethersfield. 10 

-700 

Illinois. 

George W. Perkins, Pontiac. 10 

Charles E. Felton, Chicago. 10 

-20 

Indiana. 

Charles F. Coffin, Richmond. *20 

Iowa. 

James McCartey, Salem. 10 

Kentucky. 

Cyrus Mendenhall, Covington. 10 

P. Caldwell, Louisville. 10 

- 20 

Maryland. 

W. R. Lincoln, Baltimore. 10 

G. S. Griffith. 10 

-20 

Massachusetts. 

W. Amory, Boston. 100 

William J. Bowditch, Boston. 10 

Gridley J. F. Bryant, Boston. 20 

John W. Candler, Boston. 50 

Cash, Boston. 10 

D. Denny, Boston... . 100 

Mrs. Henry F. Durant, Boston. 50 








































489 


CONTRIBUTIONS FOR 1871 AND 1872. 


Edward Earle, Worcester. 

Geo. B. Emerson, Boston. 

Charles O. Foster, Boston.’ 

A. Hardy, Boston. 

S. G. Howe, Boston. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Boston. 

Samuel Johnson, Boston. 

H. P. Kidder, Boston. 

O. W. Peabody, Boston. 

Avery Plumer, Boston. 

M. S. Scudder, Boston. 

E. S. Tobev, Boston. 

Nathaniel Thayer, Boston. 

J. C. Tyler, Boston. 

Samuel D. Warren, Boston. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Farnsworth, Groton 


Michigan. 

O. Goldsmith, Detroit. 

H. V. N. Lothrop, Detroit. 

K. McLelland, Detroit. 

James McMillen, Detroit. 

John S. Newberry, Detroit. 

C. I. Walker, Detroit. 

Rev. Charles Johnson, Lansing. 


F. W. Phelps, Winona 


Minnesota. 


$100 

100 

25 

25 

10 

10 

10 

50 

50 

10 

20 

50 

100 

10 

50 

10 

- $970 


10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

20 

10 

— so- 


Missouri. 

Mrs. A. W. Richardson. 10 

Nebraska. 

H. C. Campbell, Lincoln. 10 


New Hampshire. 


Rev. William Clark, D. D., Andover. 10 

New Jersey. 

D. Haines. 10 


New York. 


Brother Teliow. 10 

William H. Aspinwall, New York. 200 

James Brown, New York. 600 

Stewart Brown, New York... 150 

B. G. Clarke...... 175 

H. K. Coming, New York.. 150 

Erastus Corning, Albany. 200 

Cash. 10 

Winthrop S. Gilman, New York. 150 

Bishop E. S. Janes, D. D. 10 

Joseph Howland, Matteawan. 200 

James Hunter, New York. 20 

Richard Irvin. 75 

Morris K. Jesup, New York. 250 

W. R. Jane way. 25 

John Taylor Johnston, New York. 200 

Henry T. Morgan, New York. 75 

A. S. McDonald. 20 

W.C. Palmer. 20 

Amos Pilsbury, Albany. 100 

H. F. Phinney, Cooperstown. 25 

Rev. George L. Prentiss, D.D. 10 

Guy Richards, New York. 65 

George Sterry.*. 25 

Horatio Seymour, Utica. 100 























































490 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF 1873. 


Jonathan Sturges, New York. $150 

Rev. William M. Paxton, D. D. 10 

E. C. Wines, New Y'ork. 400 

Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, D. D. 10 

John David Wolfe, New York. 200 

Weston & Gray, New York. 100 

Salem H. Wales, New York. 150 

R. W. Weston. 50 

John E. Williams, New York... 50 

C. H. Shipman, Brooklyn... 200 

- $4,185 00 

Ohio. 

Murray Shipley, Cincinnati.*. 10 

G. E. Howe, Lancaster. 10 

Mrs. R. A. S. Janney, Columbus. 10 

R. B. Hayes, Cincinnati. 10 

A. H. Monfort. 10 

- 50 00 

Pennsylvania. 

Henry Cordier, Claremont, Allegheny County. 50 

T. H. Nevin, Allegheny. 10 

- GO 00 

Bhode Island. 

A. E. Burnside, Providence. 10 

A. C. Barstow, Providence. 20 

Jacob Dunnell, Pawtucket. 20 

W. W. Hoppin, Providence. 10 

Mrs. Mary A. Holden, Providence. 100 

Robert H. Ives, Providence. 60 

William J. King, Providence. 40 

Mrs. Henry Lippitt, Providence. 20 

Jesse Metcalf, Providence. 10 

Seth Padelford, Providence. 10 

Mrs. G. M. Richmond, Providence. 30 

Miss Caroline Richmond, Providence. 20 

A. & W. Sprague, Providence. 100 

James Y. Smith & Nichol, Providence. 40 

Amos D. Smith, Providence. 10 

H. J. Steere, Providence. 10 

James Tillinghast, Providence. 20 

Royal C. Taft, Providence. • 20 

ReA\ Augustus Woodbury, Providence. 20 

- 570 00 

West Virginia. 

Thomas P. Shallcross, Moundsville. 10 00 

Wisconsin. 

Edwin Hurlbut, Oconomowoc. 10 00 

United Slates. 

Appropriation by Congress... 5,000 00 

Surplus after paying expenses of Baltimore Congress. 73 85 

Russia. 

W. Soldatenkoff, St. Petersburg. 200 00 


Total contributions for the two years. 7. 068 85 


9.—Act of incorporation. 

The people of the State of Yen' York, represented in senate and assembly , 

do enact as follows : 

Section 1. Horatio Seymour, Theodore W. Dwiglit, Francis Lieber, 
Amos Pilsbury, James Brown, William H. Aspinwall, John Taylor 
Johnston, John E. Williams, Theodore Boosevelt, Morris K. Jesup, 





















































CONSTITUTION-BY-LAWS. 


491 


Isaac Bell, James G. Blaine, Conrad Baker, Rutherford B. Hayes, 
Daniel Haines, Enoch C. Wines, Oliver S. Strong, Bradford K. Peirce, 
Charles L. Brace, Charles F. Coffin, Howard Potter, Henry S. Terbell, 
Z. R. Brockway, Frank B. Sanborn, Edward W. Hatch, and their asso¬ 
ciates and successors in office, are hereby constituted a body corporate 
and politic, by the name of “ The National Prison Association of the 
United States of America,” whose duty it shall be to consider and rec¬ 
ommend plans for the promotion of the objects following; that is to 
say— 

1. The amelioration of the laws in relation to public offenses and 
offenders, and the modes of procedure by which such laws are enforced. 

2 . The improvement of the penal, correctional, and reformatory insti¬ 
tutions throughout the country, and the government, management, and 
discipline thereof, including the appointment of boards of control and 
of other officers. 

3. The care of, and providing suitable and remunerative employment 
for, discharged prisoners, and especially such as may or shall have given 
evidence of a reformation of life. 

Sec. 2. The principal place of business of the said corporation shall 
be in city of New York; and the management and disposition of its 
affairs, property, and funds shall be vested in the persons named in the 
first section of this act, and their associates and their successors in office, 
who shall remain in office for such period, and be displaced and suc¬ 
ceeded by others to be elected at the times and in the manner prescribed 
by the by-laws. The number of members to constitute a quorum shall 
be fixed by the by-laws. 

Sec. 3. The said corporation shall have power to purchase or take by 
gift, grant, devise, or bequest, real and personal property to an amount 
not exceeding three hundred thousand dollars, subject to the provisions 
of chapter three hundred and sixty of the laws of eighteen hundred and 
sixty. 

Sec. 4. The said corporation shall have and possess all the general 
powers, and be subject to all the liabilities, contained in the third title 
of chapter eighteen of the first part of the Revised Statutes. 

Sec. o. This act shall take effect immediately. 

State of New York, 

Office of the Secretary of State , ss : 

I have compared the preceding with the original law on file in this 
office, and do hereby certify that the same is a correct transcript there¬ 
from, and of the whole of said original law. 

Given under my hand and seal of office at the city of Albany, this 
twenty-ninth day of April, in the year one thousand eight huudred and 
seventy-one. 

DEIDRICH WILLERS, 
Deputy Secretary of State. 

10.—Constitution. 

Article I. This Association shall be called the National Prison As¬ 
sociation of the United States of America, and its objects shall be— 

1 . The amelioration of the laws in relation to public offenses and 
offenders, and the modes of procedure by which such laws are enforced. 

2. The improvement of the penal, correctional, and reformatory institu¬ 
tions throughout the country, and of the government, management, and 


492 


NATIONAL PRISON REFORM CONGRESS OF JS73 


discipline thereof, including the appointment.of boards of control and 
of other officers. 

3. The care of, and providing suitable and remunerative employment 
for, discharged prisoners, and especially such as may or shall have given 
evidence of a reformation of life. 

Art. II. The officers of the association shall be a president, five vice- 
presidents, a corresponding secretary, a recording secretary, a treasurer, 
and a board of directors, not exceeding thirty in number, of which the 
officers above named shall be ex officio members. 

Art. III. There shall be the following standing committees, namely: 
An executive committee, of which the president shall be ex officio chair¬ 
man, the recording secretary ex officio secretary, and the corresponding 
secretary and treasurer ex officio members; a committee on criminal law 
reform; a committee on prison discipline; a committee on juvenile de¬ 
linquency ; and a committee on discharged prisoners. 

Art. IY. The board of directors, of whom any five members shall 
constitute a quorum—two of said members being officers of the associa¬ 
tion—shall meet semi-annually, and in the interval of its meetings its 
powers shall be exercised by the executive committee, which shall fix 
its own time of meeting. 

Art. Y. Committees of correspondence shall be organized in the sev¬ 
eral States, as may be found practicable; and the formation of State 
associations shall be encouraged. 

Art. YI. Any person contributing annually to the funds of the asso¬ 
ciation not less than ten dollars shall be a member thereof; a contribu¬ 
tion of one hundred dollars at any one time shall constitute the contrib¬ 
utor a life member; and a contribution of two huudred dollars at any 
one time shall entitle the contributor to be a life director. Correspond¬ 
ing members may be appointed by the board of directors or by the ex¬ 
ecutive committee. The power of electing officers shall be confined to 
the corporate members of the association. 

Art. YII. The association shall hold an annual meeting at such time 
and place as the executive committee shall appoint, on which occasion 
the several standing committees, the corresponding secretary, and the 
treasurer shall submit annual reports. Special meetings may be called 
by the president in his discretion, and shall be called by him whenever 
he is requested to do so by any three members of the board. 

Art. YIII. All officers of the association shall be elected at the 
annual meeting or some adjournment thereof; but vacancies occurring 
after the annual meeting may be filled by the board of directors, who 
shall also appoint all committees not chosen at the annual meeting; and 
all officers shall hold over till their successors are chosen. 

Art. IX. The executive committee shall consist of seven members of 
the board of directors—the president, the recording secretary, the cor¬ 
responding secretary, and the treasurer being ex officio members—any 
three of whom shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of busi¬ 
ness. 

Art. X. This constitution may be amended by vote of a majority of 
the members of the association at any meeting thereof: Provided , That 
notice of the proposed amendment shall have been given at the next 
preceding meeting. 



BY-LAWS. 


493 


11.—By-laws. 

I. The order of business at each stated meeting of tlie board shall be 
as follows: 

1. Reading of the minutes. 

2 . Report of the treasurer. 

3. Report of the corresponding secretary. 

4. Reports from standing committees. 

5. Reports from special committees. 

G. Miscellaneous business. 

II. The president, corresponding secretary, recording secretary, and 
treasurer shall perform the customary duties of their respective offices. 

III. The president shall appoint the committees, unless otherwise 
ordered by the association. 

1Y. The president shall decide questions of order, subject to an appeal; 
and the rules of order shall be those in Cushing’s Manual, so far as they 
may be applicable. 

V. No bills shall be paid by the treasurer unless approved and signed 
by the chairman of the executive committee, or by some other member 
of said committee designated by him. 

VI. No alteration shall be made in these by-laws, except on notice of 
the proposed amendment given at a previous meeting of the board. 


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